Your Problem
by riversrunthroughme
Summary: Twas the Night before Christmas, And someplace in Jump City, Slade's been stalking Red X, Oh...what a pity. Christmas Eve brings an unexpected face to Titan Tower and the reemergance of an old enemy. Red X fans eat your hearts out. nonyaoi
1. Your Problem

**Your Problem**

_Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my room? -Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

There are rules of status. Very distinct rules of status that you must follow to success in your chosen field of expertise. Those multibillion dollar business owners stand as perfect examples of the members of society who figure this out and act to play the rules to their strengths. These people benefit from the system which works for them: they go on and use their skills and talents in their chosen field and get mucho-grande mullah for it. Good deal for them. All the other shumcks out there who lacked the IQ (or the always possible financial stability) to do something great with their lives ended up on the middle-class end of the spectrum. Then you have the lower society of homeless, poor and unfortunate who steal to live or depend wholly on others to survive.

However, it's the middle-class who, by falling into the average and unnoticed working-Joe millpond, buys immunity to the dangerous members of the fourth (unmentioned) class in society; the class that earns its due by exploiting the success of others for no other reason than they feel like it.

This class is the little, special slice of the social order pie reserved for people like Red X.

Yes, people like X existed for the sole purpose of royally screwing you over for the simple, undeniable, thrill of it. They weren't excusable like the members of the third class who had nothing, therefore had to gain without cost. Steal in lame-mans' terms. That didn't technically make it 'okay' according to law, but at least they could own up to a real and justifiable excuse like starving vs. stealing a three dollar doughnut. Hmm…no brainer and even for the flat-foots.

X, however, stole his way to the top of the police's Hate List and danced there to further taunt the long-but-not-long-enough arm of the law. Identity unknown, not even a clue to hint his characteristics other than the witness accounts of those who'd actually seen him and those were very few indeed, about five or six total. The key five by name being: Robin, Raven, Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy. Not that those witnesses counted. After all, what would they say? They set themselves up as the second line of defense, they did what the police could not, therefore, it seemed doubtful they'd go whining to the authorities about a master-mind who'd penetrated their home base and taken the suit and identity of Red X.

Even if they did what would they say?

'Officer! A guy busted into our high-security tower and stole a dangerous and perhaps unstable battle suit from our safe while we were all sleeping one room over. He's wearing all black, a skull mask with a red x across the face and a butt-load of zynovium around his waist.'

Smooth, and ignore the fact that admitting to that would confess their idolized team leader in fact, created and became Red X in the first place. No, the Titans would keep it on the down-low and wait to take X down on their own. Wait until authorities couldn't touch the thief and the delicate complications around him and his high-jacked suit. Stack up those circumstances with the misinterpretation that during their last encounter Robin out-witted him and taken the only functioning zynovium core and X could pull off any crime he wanted and glide right under Teen Titans' radar.

No one suspected X broke into SOTO Labs monthly to take capsule after capsule of the precious and volatile red chemical. No one suspected that his wonderful and oh so thrilling suit still functioned perfectly as it ever had. And certainly no one suspected that he'd been stealing enough money in jewels and fine art to make himself a kind of royalty among thieves. Most of the owners still hadn't figured out that the priceless treasures they so drooled over were in fact counterfeits X had painted up himself and phony jewels made to sparkle pretty. Either that or they were too embarrassed to publicly announce it. They just collected an inflated damage amount from the insurance company and everyone (but the insurance company anyway) got off scotch free.

Yes, the suit changed X's life for the better. He no longer worried needlessly about physical danger, focusing all his mental energy on the strategy, instead of the hazard. Now, if something _did_ go wrong he could defend himself and get out if need be.

However, he worked with the same goal in mind, that goal never changed, else-wise he'd become one of those irritated blow-hards you always read about. The over-glorified pompous criminals who stole billions in front of the world, just for the publicity. No. The goal remained: break in, steal it, get out and no one should be the wiser. The mark of a real thief in X's book always would stay the art of stealth and mystery. He left no MO, no trace; no clue and watching the police scratch their heads about it served as plenty motivational reward as X would ever need.

The identity of Red X. The criminal no one knows about, yet the mask carried enough responsibility and meaning to send chills marching up and down his spine. Nothing could quite describe the sensation of it, the high he reached when on the job. He got shivers even the freezing December air felt shamed to match. In accordance to the merry holiday spirit hanging about the occupancy of Jump City, X too anticipated the Christmas season. It meant more to steal, more cover, more reaping of rewards and with only weeks before Christmas, X already plotted the biggest and most outrageous heist he'd yet to pull with his new suit.

Sure, with the suit came the constant need for zynovium, an irritating and tedious monthly chore, but the perks…man, the perks were fabulous.

So now we return to those aforementioned rules of status: playing to your strengths to make it work. A thief has to possess the four key traits that make a hard-core criminal: smarts, patience, speed, invisibility/undetectability. That last on is one and the same, take it as you see it, point is you need them and you need to use them. X used them, all the time he used them, that's why the Titans thought he'd retreated while, in fact, he crept unseen through their city in the form of a silent crime-wave. X considered himself the perfect thief, unknown, uncatchable, invisible.

As such a pinnacle example of light-fingered dealings, the last thing a thief – him specifically – expected to say when he slipped through the skylight of his apartment that evening was:

"Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my room?"

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note:** I planned a short Christmas special just cuz. It's a tad serious because of Slade and all, but with Red X to lighten the mood I think we can all have some fun. I love Red X and figured it would be cool to dedicate a fic to the awesome-est outlaw of all time.Enjoy!


	2. Stop Stalking Me!

**Stop Stalking Me!**

_So basically you beat up little kids for living? – Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

Across the unique oriental style studio-apartment, dominating the room with undeniable power of presence sat the weirdest looking burglar he'd ever seen, not counting himself. A man wearing what appeared to be an advanced form of cybernetic body armor customized in black and steely silver, emphasizing the sense of instantaneous respect, if not terror, he demanded. However, the strength-enhancing technology failed to capture Red X's attention, as did the lazy posture, one leg crossed, fingers steepled before his masked face, one side sleek, jet black, the other dull bronze. The cool, calculating depth in the eyes beneath the mask made the perceptive thief wary.

X's immediate impression carved itself in his brain like a pen-knife. This man, this criminal, this _murderer_ sitting comfortably in the chair across the room had no intentions of stealing from him and judging by the lazy demeanor with which he regarded the strangely garbed thief, it became apparent that he'd expected his arrival. Furthermore, the man already made good use of every second X hesitated to act, already those chilled eyes had swept up and down his profile, taking him in all at once and yet soaking in every inch of his appearance, tiny details, posture, even emotion though X's mask felt secure. He'd gotten a decent feel for X the way X had gotten a feel for him.

The 'feel's went like this:

Red X: thief

Mystery Man: killer/possible psychopath

As far as capabilities went, Red didn't like where his options fell on the table. X knew when the need for violence became necessary, but in all his life he'd never actually walked into a situation where taking the life of anther human being arose as a desperate requirement. While he felt certain beyond all doubt this guy had killed before, he knew he himself had never done so, though he was capable of such. He needed to act, quickly, before this stranger absorbed any further conclusions by simply seeing him here in his own home, caught off guard, all of which really pissed the cat-burglar by the way.

Arching a single brow, Red X folded his arms across his chest and assumed his usual, unperturbed conduct. So some freak-show busted into his apartment. Big deal. Maybe he was some on-hands, rich employer looking for just the right thief to make his holiday jolly and full of good cheer (and money). Though, that still didn't explain how this guy found his apartment.

Finally the masked man spoke into the silence, answer Red's previous question. "Good evening, Red X. Forgive my intrusion. I'm Slade… and I've been watch you for some time."

X tapped a finger impatiently against his bicep, looking most unconcerned. "Uh-huh…That still doesn't explain why you're in my apartment, more specifically in my _room_, asshole. No one, come in my apartment and _no one_ comes in my room."

The coldness in the man's – Slade was it? – eyes (well actually you could only see one eye. The black half of the mask had no eye opening) rippled with something that mimicked amusement. "Very well, I'll be brief. I've taken an interest in your talents, watched you and the longer I do the more you impress me."

"That so?" X inquired doubtfully. He plucked a small speck of lint from the fabric on his shoulder and flicked it away. "Well, _I'm_ not impressed so…get out or I'll kill you."

Slade's eyes rippled with that haunting amusement again. "Kill me? Now I think you're smarter than that. I've been watching you, remember?" The man stood up, slowly and confidently as some kind of creepy panther in body armor. X tensed inwardly, fingers coiling over the pressure points inside the suit's gloves. One hard jab would activate the twin crisscross, X-blades he'd come to favor in combat. Despite his weaponry, beneath the bleached skull mask his skin prickled as cold sweat broke out across his forehead. Slade crossed the floor slowly, silently like any master thief.

Already X's brain had fallen into automatic crisis-evasion mode, thinking the swiftest avenue of egress, the best move if Slade attacked him, all the many reasons another criminal could choose to so meticulously study him. And worse and most perplexing to X remained how the son-of-a-bitch pulled off such an intense scrutiny without his knowledge. X prided himself on possessing natural powers of incredible observation and his usual wariness, made him keen of such spying

He approached the more thinly built criminal in three powerful strides and stopped only just out of X's arm reach. From the new proximity, X clearly saw the man's eyes narrow. "You don't kill. Larceny, counterfeiting, lying, and ruthless greed are not beyond your obvious intellect, but murder… It's simply not in your nature. A flaw I plan to correct. Now…sit down like a good boy and hear out my offer." He paused menacingly. "Or I can _make_ you listen."

X thought about this a moment. "As great as those options sound…I think I'm going to give you the finger…" He does. "And tell you to rot in hell."

Then Slade's eyes darkened and X knew he'd stepped in it big. Like it or not, size and strength went to Slade this round. X roughly estimated his opponent to weigh at least double what he did. Though Red X didn't consider himself incapable of fighting Slade, he knew his body type simply did not encompass the capability to put on that kind of muscle mass. X's body to weight ratio ranked as one of the most incredible physiques in the athletic world, but being able to hang by one arm for over an hour and literally throw yourself over cliff-ledged did squat against a guy who wanted to crush your skeletal structure into a compact travel size.

He'd have to outpace him.

Faster than he imagined possible, Slade darted forward and seized X by the front of his suit, hauling the lithe burglar forward with a violent jerk. The thief moved quickly however, index finger punching the pressure point in the centre of his left palm. Instantly, he struck the offending arm off him and knocked it wide causing Slade to stagger a step back. X swung low, fist plowing into his attacker's gut only to be anticipated and caught by Slade's palm.

The empty sockets of the thief's face mask widened as Slade wrenched his wrist into an impossible angle and swung his arm back for the finishing blow. X reacted more on instinct than thought and swerved just in time to avoid the punishing fist that sailed over his shoulder and took a chunk out of his wall.

X whipped his free arm, flicking a sharp red star into his hand. Faster than even Slade could follow, the younger thief rammed the star deep into Slade's forearm between the steel armor plates, blood spurting hot from the flesh. Slade snarled, a demonic sound, like that of rabid tiger and threw X's arm from him and dropping the smaller fighter to the floor. Dive rolling, around his opponent, X clenched his hands, pressure pads in his suit activating the scarlet rotary blades hidden near his wrists.

The thief spun and cut low, supple arms slicing through the air inches from the carpet, aiming to hamstring the masked man. It would have worked too, except Slade, it seemed, obtained alloys on the 'bleeding edge' of scientific discovery because X felt the jarring contact of metal on metal and blades snapped. As the spinning stilettos shattered against Slade's armor jagged bolts of pain ramming up his arms and into his shoulders. Disabled, X hissed haplessly as Slade seized his throat and roughly pinned him up against the nearest unbroken wall, sliding him up the side of the stucco like a rag doll. X grappled ineffectively against the larger man's wrists, gasping for air.

Slade heaved a long-suffering sigh and studied the masked face of the smaller criminal in his grip. "I anticipated as much from you, X. It's that kind of rash thinking that allowed the Titans to outdo you last time isn't it? You're not alert enough. Not as sharp as you could be for all the potential and intellect you possess," the intruder said, watching X with minimal concern – no scratch that. Absolutely no concern what so ever – and continued.

"The Teen Titans are an obstacle that constantly threaten my plans, X. You are one of the few who out matched them, save for your…minor error in aiding them, you could have gotten away. Even so, you managed to evade them and escape. I will destroy the Titans and I believe you will help me." Slade leaned closer, close enough to make X extremely uncomfortable if not a bit creeped out. He grimaced and leaned his face back since this guy seemed to have no understanding of the words 'personal space'.

"So…" X gritted out between his teeth. "Basically you beat up little kids for a living?" Slade's eyes narrowed so naturally the thief went on. "I mean, seriously, that Robin kid can't be more than sixteen can he? I gotta say that's pretty pathetic way for a guy to spend his time …" Slade tightened his grip and choked out the thief's sarcasm.

"You possess a technique and style I find most valuable. If you're smart you'll see things my way and accept my offer."

"And if I don't?" X wanted to know, gasping.

Slade seemed to be smiling. "I'm very diplomatic, X. I'm offering you a chance to become my apprentice. It's an honor."

X grinned fiercely beneath the mask and shrugged gracelessly against the wall. "Really? I'm flattered."

X followed his banter with a speeding boot to the gut, driving his heel hard into the larger man's belly and pounding a most satisfying 'OOF!' from the man. Winded, he loosened his hold on X and the nimble martial artist instantly knifed his arm into the back of Slade's neck. But – to the younger man's horror – the killer didn't fall, only dropped to one knee and grunted. Opting for a better effect, the thief clenched his hands together and smashed both his arms down on the man's back with all the strength he could muster. A gratifying _'kclump' _rewarded his exertion and the bigger man hit the floor with a heavy bang and a groan that came across more angry than injured.

_Getawayfromthepsychopath!Getawayfromthepsychopath!Getawayfromthepsychopath!_ The reiterating chant dominated Red X's mind as he bounded out the window and into the suddenly swirling world of white confetti snow dancing through the merry Christmas cheerful city streets. Crouching on the creaky rail of the fire escape, X tapped his index and middle finger to the centre notch in his belt. A metallic whine cued the power of zynovium at work and the vibrato of the belt's weight urged him to escape. X cast one last look over his shoulder, expecting to see Slade sprawled on the floor or struggling to stand.

Instead a very large palm closed over the thief's startled face and quite literally grabbed his head.

"You're not going anywhere," Slade hissed and threw X hard into the bottom of the fire-escape, slamming the young man down with such force the whole structure shook and rocked. The thief crashed into the railing with a metallic bang, head rebounding off the metalwork and slumping against the handrail. He groaned and rubbed the back of his throbbing head, watching stars and weird little objects boogie around his field of vision. The little cha-cha dancing stars began to fade like a curtains pulling back to reveal a huge, iron shod boot speeding for his skull.

"Ahh!" X cried, seizing the bars behind him and shoving out from the railing, sliding smoothly across the icy grating. Slade's boot crashed into the metal grid just above his head between his arms. X quickly swept his leg across the bottom of the escape and knocked the larger man's one foot out from under him. Slade went down hard, break his fall with his elbow and landing…on top of X.

"OW! Get off'a me, you psychopath! Those are my ribs!" X snarled, punching Slade in the face. Unfortunately for him Slade's metallic black and bronze face mask seemed to be made of very real bronze because his knuckles instantly went numb. "OW! Sonnofa-" He didn't finish because Slade grabbed his upper arms in a crushing grip and hauled him upright. The next thing X knew Slade's previously mentioned metal mask crashed into the centre of his forehead and furthered his original concussion.

Darkness nearly took him then. But X always surprised himself and others so in dizzying struggle that lasted about three seconds he managed to claw his way back into the waking world just in time to feel Slade grabbing at his skull mask and attempting to yank it off his head.

Yeah…that wasn't to happen. X released a startled shout and immediately slammed his right hand into Slade's chest. Red light erupted from his fingers and scarlet lightening burst from the impact sensors built into the finger tips and palm. Slade roared in pain as low level voltage morphed his whole body into a living electric current, hot energy ripping through his frame in grueling waves. X planted his foot against the man's torso and vaulted off the criminal's sturdy frame, flipping back into the open air and snapping out of perception to vanish into the snow.

-t-h-i-e-f-

The snow fell hard across the modern metropolis of Jump City and not the gentle, Winter Wonderland stuff either. A mild but freak blizzard had blown into town and frosted the city in a sugary coating of frosting ice. For the last couple weeks it had steadily worsened until most people remained inside the warmth and safety of their homes, enjoying the imminent approach of Christmas. Now that Christmas Eve had finally arrives

X had finally stopped to take a breather and also to reflect on things like the holiday spirit…which he had none of right now unless hatred counted as Christmas cheer. But who could blame him? The last two weeks proceeding Christmas had been nothing short of torment for the larcenist. Exactly one week and six days ago, a blizzard probably would have pleased the thief. Snowfall meant an opportunity to pick the parking meters, rob closed museums etcetera, etcetera…

Not anymore. _Not anymore_. The rules had changed now and Red X no long possessed creature comforts like – oh say – a house, sleep, regularly supplied food, warmth had also become a much missed accessory. Slade cut him off from all that. X tried not to think about the last two weeks, forced himself to remain in the present despite all its unpleasant realities and discomforts. Discomforts like hunger, beginning signs of frostbite, fatigue, pulled muscles in both his shoulders and lower back, raw knuckles, and more bruises than he could count.

This was the thirteenth night of his hunting and he had yet to have his nightly encounter with The Psychopathic Stalker. After about three hours of running through freezing weather, sitting, crouched atop buildings and generally lying low, X had discovered that he really, really hated white Christmases.

In fact, he decided over all holidays he liked Independence Day best.

Why?

Because in July the temperature is bit higher than twenty freaking degrees! Huddled, hands tight around his upper arms, X, thief extraordinaire muttered and rubbed his numbed limbs furiously and marveled that no where within a five mile radius did a convenient sweater or scarf boutique stand closed for him to steal from. No…of course not. Every stupid, last minute shopper on the planet currently trafficked through the mall and shops in search of socks for little Jimmy and Aunt Stacy. Damn, procrastinating fools.

Stealing a jacket would have been a fantastic solution to his problem with the cold, but unfortunately the solution to his cold problem was directly prevented by his new and vaguely horrifying stalker problem. Whereas most people received gifts for Christmas, X was blessed with a creepy criminal mastermind bent on making him into his new 'apprentice' and shadowed him around every corner of the city.

Red figured he could have removed the suit and blended into the crowd for a couple hours. Luckily he realized Slade wanted him to do just that. After all, stalking a guy in a high-performance body suit, equipped with stylized weapons and speed enhancers tended to be a shade more difficult than hunting down a guy with a specific face attached to him and no weapons. He could not, under any circumstances allow Slade to see him without his mask; therefore, X – unable to enter any public facility in his bizarre get up – froze outside.

Death by hypothermia…that had to be _the_ most pathetic way to go. Unpleasant too. The thief grumbled, hissing unsanitary things under his breath while he massaged his stiff, achy fingers and shook out his wrists. He'd never had this much trouble losing someone. Robin tailing him had been a trap, set to lure the Boy Wonder into SOTO labs as a decoy, but when he actually wanted to ditch someone – especially on his own turf – he usually succeeded. This new upset had caused a serious dent in X's confidence that only three hours of unsuccessful ditching attempts can do.

This Slade guy knew what he was doing, worse yet, he seemed to possess an inhuman drive to get what he wanted. Specifically, X. The criminal had caught up with him at least three times in the course of three hours the night previous and X came to realize the horror that his deteriorating physical condition was dragging his performance. Slade caught up with him once every hour that night. Once every hour. More than any other pursuer he'd ever had in his life.

That hunger vexed the unusually laidback burglar. He only stole because he wanted a challenge, an adrenaline fix and maybe some cash as a side-dish, but the freakish persistence and near obsession in Slade's eyes fell into a mindset beyond anything X could understand.

It kinda scared him; whether or not he'd choke on his own boots before admitting it. X shuddered at the thought of what Slade had in mind for him if he managed to catch him. That kind of fixation on anything could not be healthy. Maybe that's why he'd teased Robin about taking life to seriously? Somehow he doubted Slade would appreciate his wit.

The powdery snow groaned, and crunched beneath the soft soles of his shoes as the cat-burglar shifted his weight. Unperturbed by the ten story plunge into the empty neighborhood streets below him, X glanced out across the spanning lights of Jump city. He'd have to get moving again. He'd already sat here for roughly twenty minutes and far too long if he wanted to evade Slade's attentions…

Snow crunched behind him.

X spun and hurled three, razor sharp X-blades at the lone figure standing on the previously empty roof top. The figure dodged the attack and rose to his feet. Sure enough, half-way across the roof stood Slade, all six feet of body armor, and cold-blooded intent of him. For the fourth time that night he managed to simply 'appear' within twenty feet of the skull-faced bandit and the fact X had yet to figure out how he pulled it off pissed the hell out of him.

The younger criminal couldn't take much more of this. He was cold. He was wet. He was exhausted and to top it off the freak in a Halloween costume wouldn't just _go **away.**_ To say he'd reached some type of limit, mental and/or physical seemed a gross understatement.

He leapt up thrust both hands out before him as if to shove the masked man off the roof through force of will. Red light burst from his palms in the form of lazar 'X's that created a soft whining noise in contrast to their violent flight through the air. They exploded in the snow, sending plumes of white confetti flurry and clouds of hissing steam into the air across the roof.

"STOP FOLLOWING ME!" he shouted, firing another volley into the cloud of snow. "I'm not going to be your apprentice! So get off my back, asshole!"

"I'm afraid that's impossible." The thief tensed at the low, mock-apologetic tone as a shadowy figure shifted inside the cloud of steam and vanished in ghost-like fluidity. "You're involved now. You won't escape."

X locked onto the sound of the voice and swung his arms around to aim at the shadowy niche of a roof-top generator. "INVOLVE THIS!"

The generator exploded and X leapt off the top of the building and into the alleyway below, slowing his free-fall by nimbly snatching at the apartment windowsill at the fifth floor. His shoulders rippled and tensed, sleek muscles coiling beneath the suit as he defied gravity's call using his bare hands. Releasing the sill, he dropped from one level to the next. Landing in the snow frosted alley, the drifts crunched under his feet as he spun and fell into a low crouch against the wall near a sharp corner, back braced against the bricks, tight to the building and its protective shadows. Perhaps Slade hadn't seen him drop during the explosion? Maybe…Hopefully…

"Stubborn," remarked a deep voice. X gasped as a freezing hand seized his right arm, taking him completely off guard, a fact which scared him more than the grip on his bicep. "But that will do you good as my pupil, X. The sooner you realize that the easier this will be for you."

The next thing X knew: a violent jerking twist and loud, sickening _crack!_ followed by the most blinding pain he'd ever experienced. X screamed. He couldn't help it; like a knee-jerk reaction it just happened. The thief groaned, suddenly breathless, entire body turned fluttery and oddly hypersensitive, his natural reaction to sudden pain. He felt his mind fading in and out of touch with his senses, the sunken hollow at his shoulder, where the bone had simply popped from its socket. Suddenly, he couldn't really believe all this; everything seemed surreal and hazy with drifting mists of pain to keep him awake.

He was going into shock.

"You're tired, dear boy. Look at you. The first week I could only catch you every other night. Now I've caught up to you three times in a single evening," he purred, careful to keep his grip tight on X's injured shoulder.

Another thing X didn't like about this guy. He didn't just talk like a normal person; everything he said seemed like an attempt to hypnotize you verbally. Made his skin crawl. Slade seemed to sense X's drifting attention and twisted the burglar's arm to bring him back to earth.

X didn't have the breath to scream this time. Instead he moaned and hunched his upper body as if seeking to curl up in pain. Acid bolts of pain raped his nervous system with stabs of exquisite agony. He fancied he could hear tendons ripping under his skin as pain swamped his mind. He breath came in short, stuttering bursts, like a little kid trying to breathe while crying. Funny because he wasn't crying at all, but he still couldn't breathe.

Slade squeezed the thief's arm warningly. "Well? What's your explanation?"

"Y-you – won't let me get any – sleep," X pointed out. His breath came so hard the air before his lips steamed with every word.

The masked man leaned closer. At this point X didn't even care, he just wanted the bastard to get off him so the ligaments in his shoulder would stop tearing. Slade next word dripped with gentle, persuation"If I'm too much for you only say the word and I'll stop, X. Simply swear yourself to me and it will stop."

_Like that's gonna happen…_ X thought sardonically.

"You know – perpetual stalking isn't – a good – moral booster," he replied. "Neither is pain. I think – I'll pass…"

Slade's cold steely eyes (or eye if you're into detail) laughed as X began to tremble visibly, his entire body spiraling into a shocked state of vulnerability. Hmm…everything seemed to be spinning. That was bad right? He usually didn't complain about little things like pain or fatigue but everything just…_hurt_. A lot and he wanted it to stop. Slade caught his chin between his thumb and forefinger, tipping his face up so the two criminals were face to face.

The sight of that single, pitiless, grey eye inches from his own snapped X's focus back to earth.

"Shaking already?" murmured the man cruelly. "I thought you were more resilient than that, X. Perhaps you need my guidance more than I realized."

X ground his teeth and forced his arms to work past their pain. Muscles shrieking, he shoved the larger man back, forcing the pain of his arms from his brain. Then, just to show him how much he 'needed' the criminal's guidance he kicked the man in the gut. Slade grunted and X struck, cobra quick. Punching the pressure pad in his palm his favored weapon slid from its compact compartment and scratched a deep gouge in Slade's two-toned mask and nearly splitting the alloy diagonally.

The man hissed and leapt off the agile thief to clutch his mask, he only just managed to grab his face before the broken pieces tumbled off his features. Slade turned an arsenic laced look on his apprentice to-be and stood up. X quickly pulled his knees in and raised one arm in defense should his attacker…you know…attack. But he didn't. He only stood there, snow swirling around him, cold eyes making blizzard feel warm and comfy in comparison.

"You win for now. However, I'll be coming back to get you, dear boy. Until then, I'll give you the holiday to think it over." He smiled without ever showing his face. "Merry Christmas, X. Enjoy it."

Then he simply vanished.

Panting slightly, skin beneath his clothes soaked with perspiration, X shivered as the icy wind bit at his fatigued extremities, threatening to freeze him where he stood. Knowing he'd have a terrible cold by this time tomorrow, he only just managed to drag his battered body to its feet and stand straight. Leaning heavily against the wall, lifted his arms tiredly and retracted his, crisscross blade. He knew beneath his suit his ribs had turned several different shades of purple and blue. Lovely…

The thief glanced toward the empty space once occupied by Slade.

"How the hell does he do that?" grumbled the thief and massaged his shoulder.

X presently stood there, trying to come up with some brilliant plan to stop this new found attention before it killed him.

Literally…

'_Face it, buddy. Slade is bigger than you. Stronger than you and he seems to have more experience tracking than you do in running,' _said the cynical logic in his head. _'Basically you're screwed, my friend. You can't beat him alone. He wants it more than you. He wants to kidnap you more than you want to get away, however the hell that works. You can't win.' _

"Thanks a lot…" Red X snorted. He gripped his disjointed arm, biting his lip until it threatened to slip. "What do you know anyway?"

Then he rammed the joint back into its socket and collapsed against the wall, blinded momentarily by the pain. The moment passed and the cat burglar managed to regain his equilibrium. And with that he pushed off the wall and made for the one place he never thought he'd willingly go.

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note:** Hmm…it didn't come out exactly like I wanted but than again writing tends to evolve so I'll leave it as is. Hope you liked it! If you have any suggestions just leave them in the review box. By the way, I don't own Teen Titans and if I did I wouldn't be writing about it on Fanfiction, I'd be giving you awesome episodes wouldn't I?


	3. Christmas Eve

**Christmas Eve**

****

_By the way, you guys make lousy fudge. - Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

The season of Christmas had come upon the bright metropolis of Jump City and with it the Titan Tower too had been pulled into the current of joy and celebration. Standing tall in the middle of the Titans' living room a large, full branched pine-tree took up an obscene amount of space. Space that soon filled with brilliantly blinking Christmas lights, popcorn strings, tinsel, and brightly hued Christmas bobbles. The great golden star to top the tree had not yet journeyed to the peak of the impressive shrub and the Titans remained hard at work to prepare for Christmas day.

"NOO! Starfire not that! Don't! DON'T! NOOOOOOO!" wailed Beast Boy dramatically, throwing himself at the Tameranian girl and tackling her away from the kitchen counter.

The girl squealed and the bottle of ketchup and curry mix in her hands flew from her fingers to sail across the room. Robin, carrying a large stack of newly wrapped boxes, packages and bags walked through the door just into time to get smacked in the forehead by the errant bottle. The Boy Wonder hollered and went down in a rain of boxes and wrapping paper to be buried alive in the mountain of bright parcels. Raven, sitting quietly amid several bowls of unstrung popcorn and thread spools ignored the culinary war waging only just across the couch behind her and gestured lazily to the pile of boxes crushing the life from their spiky haired leader. The packages obediently floated over to arrange themselves under the tree and revealed a very abused looking Robin sprawled on the carpet beneath.

"You wouldn't have to carry all that junk if you just let me-," Raven began.

"No! I have to check every present myself," Robin interrupted fiercely. "Anyone of our enemies might try to mail us something dangerous. Even you agreed with me. It would be stupid not to."

"Yeah, cuz you know how grateful little girls loo-ove to make bombs and explosives in Art Class," teased Cyborg as he stepped over the fallen martial artist, a bulging bag of envelopes and packages filled to bursting over his broad shoulders. "H'all right y'all! Who wants fanmail?"

Raven's left brow gave an involuntary twitch. "Do the words Puppet King mean anything to you?"

The cybernetic teenager flushed, toffee hued skin growing darker with the memory. "Erm…Here Rob. You'd better check these too," he said nervously, dumping the sack on the smaller boy. Raven winced as Robin once again found himself buried in presents from fans, grateful families, the police department, the governor and fire department. The boy thrashed around, voice muffled by the paper and cloth while Cyborg tried unsuccessfully to dislodge poor Robin.

Behind the kitchen counter, Starfire grappled violently with a large green gorilla in a cooking apron. Beast Boy (gorilla) shielded a large bowl of cookie mix protectively while staving her off with what looked like a large rubber spatula. Starfire, in contrast attempted to reach the bowl, her free hand wielding a bottle of salsa most skillfully.

"Cookies of the Christmas shall not be complete without the wonderful, zesty, zip of your human salsa!" she protested as the spatula smacked her repeatedly.

Beast Boy reverted to his human form, but continued to beat at her with the cooking implement, short greenish hair peppered with white flour and doughy clumps. Howling like wolf defending its cubs, he fenced off the Tameranian skillfully with his spatula, dodging her attempts to fill his cookie batter with salsa.

"Back off, dude! No one puts salsa in sugar cookies! Everyone will think we're crazy! LET ME HANDLE IT!" Beast Boy growled while planting a foot against Starfire's head. Despite the boot on her skull, the girl still stretched her arm for the bowl, fingers waving about as if to feel it out.

"But just let me-"

"No!"

"But if I-"

"_No_!"

"What if-"

"NO!" Beast Boy shrieked, clutching at the bowl and hissing rabidly. Starfire blinked at her friend and decided she sought to help Raven string popcorn instead. Five hours of cookie baking and Christmas dinner making had very-nearly sent the changeling into a hysterical twitching craze and he obviously didn't appreciate Starfire's alien input on his culinary methods. The green-furred boy watched her move all the way over to the sofa before he returned to his previous cooking trance.

Raven gestured to the little white popcorn puffs and the tiny kernels flew into the air to line up neatly overhead. Then with her other arm she waved the needle and thread through the ranks of popcorn, stringing the entire bowl at once. Starfire blinked, eyes round with admiration for the dark-haired psychic and picked up a package yet to be popped. She ripped it open and dumped all the kernels into the bowl and waited patiently.

Thirty seconds later, Raven looked up soberly from her threading and spoke up. "They pop when you heat them, Starfire."

"Oooh!" the alien girl cooed in enlightenment. "Then I shall pop the popcorn until it is…popped!" She grinned happily and began heating the bowl with her starbolts. Raven's eyes grew round in horror.

"No! Star! You need a –"

_POP!_

"-lid," Raven finished lamely.

A blizzard of popcorn tumbled from the ceiling around them, filling the air with the tasty aroma of freshly made popcorn. The red-head blushed madly as Raven scowled and meticulously picked the little white puffs from her violet tresses. Beast Boy didn't even take notice of the popcorn fiasco, far too absorbed in his cooking to be bothered with such trivial things. Raven summoned all the fallen corn-puffs to the empty bowl and handed Starfire the needle and thread.

"Think you can work that with out lighting the tree on fire?" Raven demanded flatly.

Starfire nodded enthusiastically.

Raven twitched and picked up the novel she'd set down to string popcorn for. "Good."

The pretty alien quickly began stringing popcorn at high speed, looking quite entertained for someone performing a seemingly meticulous task. Raven flipped a couple pages of her novel before her teammate's curiosity overrode her mad decorating. The girl looked up from her bowl and thread to blink at the emotionless-looking Raven.

"Is it not required that one be 'merry' upon Christmas?" she inquired quizzically. "Because I -,"

"I don't _do_ 'merry'," Raven replied tonelessly and flipped another page.

Starfire blinked at her friend for a long moment and decided it would be best to simply leave the introverted young woman alone and returned to her popcorn stringing. A few minutes later there came a loud crashing and banging from the hallway. Raven glanced up while Starfire hopped up, scattering popcorn every which way in her haste, and with a slight kick of her heels leapt into the air. The banging continued and a moment later a very wet, dripping figure stepped into the entry, a hunched in an inhuman partner beside it. They carried something large and oblong between them that looked suspiciously like a…

Robin's head popped out of the mail pile. "TITANS! GO!"

Starfire shouted a righteous war-cry and acid green light blazed up in her eyes and hands. Cyborg hollered his traditional 'BOO-YAH!' and aimed his arm at the intruder, mechanical hand shifting and rearranging as his beloved plasma blaster. Raven vanished in a swathe of shadow, obviously plotting a strategic, sneak attack somewhere while Robin…wriggled more furiously to get out of the killer mountain, mail mass of doom. (Beast Boy kept cooking.)

"Uhh…Titans? A little help here?" he said, sweatdropping.

"YAH!" screamed Starfire, zooming at the two gun-toting intruders.

"AHHHHHH!" said the first intruder.

_Gurgle!_ agreed the second, clinging to the leg of the first and dropping the 'weapon'.

At this all the Titans froze and stared more closely at the individuals standing in the doorway. Starfire, suspicious, lifted her hand, allowing the greenish glow to fall across two terrified looking faces. A very wet, and very cold looking Aqualad and Tramm stood in the hall with a sopping, seaweed wrapped package lying on the floor at their feet. Hanging from the side a small, card read:

_To: The Titans_

_From: Aqualad and Tramm_

"Heh heh…sorry guys. We thought you were the rest of those robotic Christmas carolers that attacked us earlier," Cyborg laughed, reverting his arm back into a hand and rubbing the back of his head with it. A rushing sound signaled the reappearance of Raven. Sure enough, just to Aqualad's left a swirling vortex of black light opened up on the wall a couple feet away. Tramm squealed in terror and somehow vaulted up the telepath's frame and perched, twitching to the poor Atlantian's head. Raven's voice snorted somewhere inside the whirlpool of energy and a moment later the waifish figure of Raven, shrouded in her cloak, emerged.

"Oh is that all?" Raven said sarcastically. "And the recent string of robberies and reported crime tripling has nothing whatsoever to do with our holiday paranoia."

Aqualad huffed a breath of relief and pried Tramm's fingers out of his damp and glossy black hair. Though somewhat paler after having had the entire force of the Teen Titans attack force directed at him, the dark-eyed Titan from the sea seemed to have good humor about it. Placing Tramm on the floor beside him he smiled warmly at Raven who managed a small grin in return. She preferred not to get too carried away around the attractive Atlantian, should her emotions blow something up and with all the cookies and decorations around, it would result in a lot of pre-Christmas cleaning.

Starfire however, didn't have this problem. She launched herself at the boy, shrieking in joy and crushing him in a Tameranian bear-hug that made several vertebrae groan in protest. Tramm snickered while his taller partner gasped in pain. The girl took no noticed, instead swinging the aquatic Titan in a happy circle.

"Aqualad! I am overjoyed that you have come!" she cheered, setting the bruised Aqualad back on his feet. "Please you must join us for the Christmas and the awaiting of Santa!"

"Whose Santa?" he inquired.

"He is the jolly, red, fat man who squeezes down chimneys with presents for all the little earth children!" she began joyfully. "On Christmas Eve, we leave cookies for him to consume and hide in waiting. Then when we lure him out with promises of the delicious cookies and milk…" She paused and Aqualad nodded, vaguely intrigued by the thought of a fat man squeezing down chimneys. Starfire grinned and leapt up shouting, "WE JUMP THE ZARBNARF AND ARREST HIM FOR THE BREAKING AND ENTERING!"

Tramm, at this new explosion, no longer seemed to care what the crazy land-girl did and ignored it. Instead he dragged the package across the floor, while Raven propelled it along. Cyborg joined them a moment later, grinning and happy. Before Raven had a chance to escape, the two dove into what looked like an excited exchange about…mechanics from the way they presented each other with odd bits of hard-ware and electronics. Raven, annoyed, sat down on the couch and opened her book.

"Hmm…sounds like someone's been getting festive tutoring from Beast Boy again," remarked Robin, who'd finally escaped the mail pile. He grinned and met their guest halfway across the room and they two boys exchanged high-fives. "Hey, Aqualad. How's it going?"

"Fine. Nothing unusual. 'Fraid the ocean doesn't have much use for Santa," he joked, "but Atlantis does know a bit about your culture. We're supposed to give gifts right?"

"Please, would you care for staying and attending our celebration upon Christmas morn?" Starfire asked excitedly. "I could created a batch of my special Tameranian-,"

"NO! NO TAMERANIAN ANYTHING!" screamed Beast Boy suddenly, twitching from the refrigerator. Everyone stared at the changeling who looked downright dangerous among the array of cooking implements and various bowls of mix. Aqualad blinked. Robin sweatdropped and everyone else mimicked him. Finally Tramm broke the silence, chattering something urgently to his partner and making 'no go' signals with his webbed hands. The Atlantian nodded and shrugged apologetically to the Titans.

"Sorry guys. Can't. Atlantis doesn't celebrate Christmas so I get no vacation," he sighed. "Thanks a lot though. You know I'd stay if I could."

"Of course," Robin said understandingly.

Ravne looked up from her book. "Hey Aqualad. Be careful around the bay area. A couple corporate jerks are trying to comb the bottom for profit. Don't get caught in the mess," she said in her usual monotone. Then, after a pause, she added, "And merry Christmas."

"Yes. Avoid the bay. Your capture in horrible human netting would be most unmerry," Starfire agreed.

"Thanks guys. See yu' later," laughed the boy and moved toward the exit with Tramm.

"WAIT!" Beast Boy screamed and launched out of the cloud of flour he'd been shrouded in to charge the aquatic duo. They both flinched and Tramm leapt on his back for the second time that night, certain the erratic changeling met to bake them in a pie. The green-haired teenager skidded to a halt in front of them, panting and wild, with patches of sugar and flour all over his body. Then, he whipped out a bag of assorted Christmas cookies and thrust them into the startled Aqualad's hands.

"Have some Christmas cookies! Baked with love and tofu! Merry Christmas!"

"Umm…" replied Aqualad.

_Gurgle? _echoed Tramm, but Beast Boy already dove back into his world of baking and Christmas confections. The two blinked at one another and shrugged. As the door began to close behind them everyone managed to catch Aqualad's parting question to Tramm.

"What's tofu?"

-t-h-i-e-f-

Eleven o'clock struck its final hour with a ringing toll that roused Robin from his catnap. Groaning he sat up; a soft wool blanket slipping off his narrow, shoulders as he did so and sliding to the carpet. He glanced up at the horrible little clock Starfire had bought last week and glared at the monstrous little devise, contemplating whether to smash it with a birdarang or simply chuck it in the trash compactor. An obnoxious green and yellow color, its face glowed purple and it emitted the most horrible sound every hour. The same sound which had so gently stabbed its screeching sound wave into his skull. The Boy Wonder sighed and massaged the side of his head, feeling incredibly heavy for some reason.

Rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, he looked about and realized why.

Littering the floor, hundreds of little white cups rolled freely across the carpet beside an empty bowl of eggnog large enough to take over the table. Beast Boy had made enough for the whole Fire Department, but the blizzard made delivery impossible so the Titans had helped themselves. Robin flushed red, realizing he must have passed out sometime during their eggnog binge and conked out on the sofa. He could only hope the others hadn't noticed and merely assumed he'd gone to sleep.

The teenager yawned and stretched his arms over his head, arching his back until several vertebrae cracked satisfactorily and looking up at the finished product of the Titans' Christmas tree. Having nothing better to do now that he'd woken up, Robin stood and moved to pick up all the scattered cups.

"Zarbnarf!" ranted out a voice.

"Ahh!"

Robin sprang backward into the sofa as the lump of pillows at the end of the couch shifted and wriggled. 'Mmmf,' said the lump. The ebon-haired teenager slowly stepped off the couch and moved across the floor to peer around the squishy bulge of feather pillow. Curled up, hugging a pillow to her chest was none other than Starfire. Her long, red hair hung in soft waves down the side of the couch and across her face. With every breath, a small lock of hair blew in and out around her smiling lips.

Robin smiled, shaking his head as he turned around and picked up the blanket off the floor. Starfire sighed happily as Robin sat down beside her to tuck the blanket around her body, carefully wrapping her bare shoulders in the wool coverlet and brushing her hair out of her face. Robin's hands stroked her hair back so gently the girl didn't even stir. She simply sighed and hugged her pillow tighter.

Robin sat on the couch and watched her for a long moment, wondering if she'd been the one who covered him with the blanket in the first place. He couldn't deny he owned a certain affection for the little alien that he lacked for the other Titans. Perhaps it had something to do with her selfless naivety, or perhaps the innocent air of charm that seemed to cloak her lovely features no matter the situation. Robin even had to concede to a small crush… totally stupid of course. Just teenage hormones he told himself firmly. No matter how his heart threw a tantrum about 'true love'.

Course, he'd rather gag on his birdarang before admitting that.

He glanced at the Titan Alert module, standing as a silent sentinel on the counter by the kitchen. It hadn't gone off for almost two days now and for that Robin was grateful. With the sudden influx of crime the Boy Wonder had been certain the team would have no time for Christmas.

He sighed and leaned back, propping his head against the back of the sofa and simply soaking in the warm silence of the Christmas Eve evening. Sitting and doing nothing occurred rarely for Robin and the experience he discovered was one he rather enjoyed.

Then Robin's communicator went off.

"Mal zarkin!" exclaimed Starfire suddenly and lunged at Robin across the sofa. The boy yelped loudly as the Tameranian wrapped her arms around his ribs and crushed him in an affectionate bear-hug that nearly cracked the poor Titan's ribcage and pinned his right arm against his side.

Eep?

Robin squirmed desperately trying to loosen her grip, but failed miserably and simply held still, should she try to hold him tighter and actually break something. The alien girl didn't know her own strength sometimes and certainly not while her mind danced off in dreamland.

The musical beeping of Robin's communicator went off again. Starfire 'hmmm'ed contentedly and snuggled her face against the other Titan's side. Her dream obviously had something to do with her home planet and nothing to do with him, obviously, but that didn't make the situation any less awkward for Robin who now had a pretty, red-head girl clinging to his middle.

Looking for a distraction, Robin unhooked his communicator from his belt and flipped it open. No image appeared so the call came via a cell-phone or landline. He moved it against his ear and spoke softly as to not wake the dozing Tameranian. (Not that he'd wake her up. She'd slept through that awful alarm clock after all.)

"Robin here," he said lightly. "Who's this?"

"…" Silence from the other end.

Robin quirked a brow. "Umm…hello?"

Finally a deep breath drifted over the opposite line and a familiar, distorted voice spoke over the link. "Hey, kid. It's been a while."

Robin's entire body stiffened at the words and before he even thought to speak the name was out. "X!"

"That's my name," snickered the voice, just as cocky and laid-back as Robin remembered. "Look, I don't want trouble, but I thought since we're on such good terms with each other I could come to you with a small problem of mine."

"We're not a good terms and whatever it is, it's your problem. Not mine," replied Robin, a small bitter smile pulling at his lips. He leaned back and slid his elbow over the back of the couch, still holding the phone to his ear. "And since when do you associate with crime-fighters? Doesn't seem very smart for a thief."

"And using the same base-code for your crummy security system doesn't seem very smart for a crime-fighter," said the smug voice. "By the way, you guys make lousy fudge."

"You're bluffing," Robin laughed. "Beast Boy didn't make fudge."

"You wound me. Honor amongst thieves is very important to me," X said, genuinely defensive. "But I didn't call you to talk about food. I just wanted to ask you about someone since you're such an expert on criminals."

Robin snorted. "What makes you think I'll help you? You're a criminal too remember?"

"Then call it a tip-off," X replied impatiently. "You got any enemies that never seem to go away?"

Robin frowned at the Christmas tree. "More than I can count. What's you're point."

"Hey, I'm trying to be a nice guy. There's a psychopath in Jump. He's been lurking around my turf, trying to kill me for no reason in particular. Wears a lot of body armor, one eye. Sound familiar?"

Robin's heart did a couple major calisthenics in his chest and the boy instinctively knotted his hands into fists. Starfire shifted against his side and the Boy Wonder stared at the communicator for a long, long moment. Every logical atom in his being screamed all the impossibilities of X's statement, all the other possible meanings in his words. Red X did not count as a reliable source of information. As a thief, he probably knew all about Slade, probably even worked with him for all Robin knew. Thieves have no morals, lying would not recline beyond X's ability.

Despite all the logic, all the well worn paths of reasoning and thought, Robin could not for the life of him stop the sudden cold sweat that broke out across his forehead.

"Hellloo? Hey, Bird-Boy?" X called over the communicator. "Hello? That too complicated for you, kiddo? You still with me?"

Robin snapped out of his trance and gripped the Titan made devise with a shaking fist. "Yeah. What did you say his name was?"

Without missing a beat X snorted and replied, "I didn't but from that pause I think you know him. If you want me to tell you where the freak-show is, you'll have to do me a little favor."

The Titan leader chewed his lip a long moment. No. He wouldn't let X turn the tables over a breath of rumor. "I don't do favors. Not with criminals," he said flatly. Then, on a hunch he went on. "Besides, he's your problem now isn't he? Not my fault you pissed off a killer."

"Some hero you are. Real noble and all that bull-shit," X sneered, but Robin didn't miss the sudden tightening in his distorted voice waves. "Nothing I can't handle of course, but I'm not a heroic type like you, spiky. My problem will be your problem before long."

Robin grinned, enjoying the cat-burglar's distress. As serious as the situation that seemed to be developing Robin felt a brief gloating, sensation of gratification that the thief got a taste of what Robin had dealt with for so long. If X's words did indeed hold some inkling of truth and Slade really was trying to kill him, then Robin nearly pitied the selfish larcenist. Running from Slade, alone with no backup didn't strike Robin as a nice way to spend Christmas Eve. Just envisioning the madman almost made Robin concede to ask X where the murderer was for the sake of the city if nothing else.

Almost…

"Then I deal with it then," Robin replied. "Merry Christmas, X."

"Wait!" X hissed quickly, then bit off is words in irritation, obviously hating every moment of his disadvantageous position. Robin paused as if quite unconcerned and 'hmm?'ed ever so patiently into the speaker.

"…" A tense pause drifted from the other line. Finally, X's rigid voice spoke across the connection, his tone hot with disgust. "If you think I need your help… then you're stupider than I thought, kid."

"And if you think Slade will ever stop hunting you then you're a dead man," Robin replied, throwing the name in with a bite of venom to chill the burglar. "You only _care_ about yourself, so you're _by_ yourself. If you want my help then you'll turn yourself in."

Soft, static, laughter from the other end. "Nice try, Bird Boy, but jail isn't my style."

"And dead is?" Robin shot back.

"Merry Christmas, kid. Don't drink so much eggnog next time." A click. Then radio silence.

Robin stared at the radio in his palm for a long moment. Once again, doubts concerning Red X's integrity assaulted his suspicions. There was no way he could possibly have met Slade. What reason would Slade have for a common thief? A talented thief, Robin admitted, but still only one, selfish, uncommitted, smart-ass, thief who seemed more inclined to work alone than split job earnings with anyone, even Slade. X had intelligence on some level and Robin doubted the thief could have possibly done something so blatantly idiotic as to get Slade angry with him.

Robin closed the communicator and tossed it to the opposite side of the couch. He consoled his troubled thoughts with the theory X was probably just looking for attention, like the show-off he was. Settling back down to brood, the Boy Wonder took no notice of cloak shrouded figure standing in the hallway behind him. The shadow stepped back into the shadows and leaned back reflectively against the wall.

"Beast Boy did too make fudge," she murmured. "He made it after Robin went to sleep…That means he's close."

Raven stepped backward and melted into the shadows.


	4. Encounter

**Encounter**

_What the hell. I like shooting myself in the foot. – Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

Hero. If someone had so been possessed to walk up to Red X and boldly demand: Define the word hero, please. Give a clarification of the noun and lift the perpetual fog of confusion that seems to have taken residence in my mind. The thief would have – ignoring the fact he was suddenly speaking to a strange person who walks in blizzards – told them exactly the meaning of the word.

Hero: 1. a man of distinguished courage or ability admired for brave deeds and noble qualities. 2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or ideals.

In regards to that X thought something very philosophical like 'Yeah…whatever…' and also deduced that since a hero's status seemed to depend upon the opinion of others in said definition then in X's opinion Jump City had no heroes as of right now.

Now, lets flip-flop nouns and switch 'hero' with 'thief' and for a crazy, half-delusional, hypothermic moment pretend that the already illusionary questioner also decided to ask X the meaning of that word. The burglar, who could no longer feel his feet or fingers, would have replied something like this:

Thief: 1. a criminal who takes property belonging to someone else with the intention of keeping it or selling it.

Yeah. Not much more to it than that, despite all the romantic notions surrounding the citizens of the light-fingered community. Thieves pretty much did what they did because the money came quick and easy if you got good at your job. X had reached such a level of skill that few truly valuable things lay beyond his capable reach. However, for the young cat-burglar and (you could say) criminal mastermind, the rush meant more than the money. Duh…he already stole enough to retire off of and live the rest of his natural life in Tahiti if he so fancied.

So why keep going? (he thought this while glaring at the Titan communicator he'd stolen from the nightstand in Beast Boy's room) Why keep on stealing?

Standing there in the freezing wind, hugging himself, battered knuckles white under bloody stains beneath the suit's gloves, the young man suddenly seriously began to question himself. If not for his talents in taking things that were not his, perhaps he would have lived to see this Christmas without being hunted by and obsessive stalker demanding said skills for his own. Perhaps if he'd just toed the line in pre-school when Mrs. Iverson told him to stop taking Fruit Roll-ups from the pantry he would have become a different person.

Hey, maybe if he'd restrained himself when Principal Paxton turned his back in the fifth grade. Imagine he'd been caught in the act as a child and punished for it instead of having so much damn skill he naturally nicked anything he liked. Perhaps if he'd taken to another talent before thievery… photography for instance, he'd have dedicated his life to a very different first love. He'd always had a good eye for the extraordinary and abstract in the real world. But now, instead of capture it on film, he'd simply took it and looked at it when ever he chose.

The thief gloomily wondered. If he'd become a photographer would this maniac ever darkened his doorway? No. Course not. Who the hell stalks an artistic photographer? Nobody! X imagined Christmas without thievery as one filled with friends, (bleh…) family, (bleh…) food, warmth, (double yessssss) a social life (bleh…) and lots of _love_(dripping with sarcasm here)…

…and _boredom_!

The thief waved away the thoughts and focused on putting one aching foot in front of the other. None of it meant anything. X tended to live in the moment. The next instant food, drink, warmth and shelter became available to the fatigued larcenist, he would undoubtedly return to stealing anything not nailed down, motion sensor locked, lazar grid-lined and dog guarded.

"Ow," the burglar mumbled, opening and closing his right hand.

He sighed and raised his fingers to his bruised lips beneath the mask and breathed heavily to warm them. Steam fogged the air about his hand and glistened on the still oozing blood seeping between the tattered material. The sparkled of smashed circuitry and complex mobile, battle technology wired into the suit gleamed through the frayed cloth over his knuckles. The last couple rounds against Slade had busted a couple fingers, luckily in his right hand.

He sighed again and glanced crossly at the lofty Titan Tower, cold steel, cement and glass all dark in the blizzard's flurries. They wouldn't help, not that he'd really counted on it, but being able to crash in the T-car for a couple hours hadn't hurt him much and consuming an entire plate of fudge – the only thing left near enough for him to take without keen-eared Robin waking up – had somewhat filled the growling pit in his belly.

The one place he knew he could hide without being found out. X happily accepted the little it had to offer. The Titan's assistance, obviously not offered, but the security of their reputation allowed him the most dreamless sleep he'd had in almost two weeks. The back seat of the Titan's super-car happened to be stitched of the softest upholstery hero allowance could buy. Shamefully, he admitted to practically crawling in and passing out inside his enemies' vehicle. Simply knowing Slade couldn't touch him lulled him to sleep in a blinking.

Feeling refreshed if not a step over undead, X reasoned he could probably make it to Gotham if he hot-footed it. The blizzard, however, presented problem in that it closed all means of high-jackable transportation and hitch-hiking. He wouldn't survive another night on the streets. He knew he would either die in the cold or Slade would drag his partially frostbitten body out of some alley. Then the psychopath would teach him the tricks of the trade in joining the Dark Side.

He brooded a moment thinking arsenic laced thoughts like

_Joy! I don't get to make a deal with the devil; the bastard just pops out of a hole and drags me the rest of the damn way down. Tch…Why bother me, huh? I'm a thief dammit; you don't need to coax me any further down the road to eternal damnation, thanks_.

…

"Well…" he admitted allow, mostly to distract himself, "maybe that was being a tad pessimistic, but still…"

"Do you always talk to yourself or is that the hypothermia speaking?" inquired a drawling female voice.

_Hmm…._

X shrugged, not even bothering to turn and look at the dark girl hovering amid the snow flurries behind him. Rotating one arm in a wide circle he flexed his fingers experimentally and grimaced as a bolt of cranky pain ripped up his arm. The broken bones crouched evilly at the joints to his wrist and dared him to try that again. He chose not to and draped the damaged hand across his knee instead.

He grinned, though the girl could see nothing but the slight narrowing of the void eye sockets in his mask. He craned his head, swiveling about to study the cloak swathed figure floating about two feet over the fresh snow. A loose loops of dark ruby hung, glinting about her hips, gleaming from the clasp at her throat and both her wrists. X briefly estimated their worth at a couple hundred thousand if not priceless; knowing the dimension jumping Titan could have acquired them from something…less than human.

Raven, the theatrically dark and gloomy girl of the Teen Titan fighting force stared down at the thief through the dark shadows obscuring the upper half of her face in comfortable darkness. He knew from previous experience she possessed an unorthodox kind of charm to her ever-serious features, though she fell a marginal second to the extraterrestrial knock-out curled up on the end of the couch just upstairs.

Cold wind swirled up from the ocean waves causing her thick cloak to engulf her thin figure and adding a strange unearthly mystique to her appearance.

"Well?" she inquired and X felt the brow arch up beneath her cowl.

"Maybe, but if that's true then can you really trust anything I'm saying?" the thief chuckled.

Raven folded her thin arms over her breasts and frowned at the battered looking cat-burglar. "I wouldn't trust anymore than I can throw -,"

X arched one brow so high the eye-socket stretched. Raven paused to reevaluate her words and huffed, breath fogging on her thin lips and drifting away on the wind.

"Okay…so I can throw you pretty far. Bad example. Point is I don't trust you," Raven said in her elegantly bitter tones.

Dark eyes of cocktail lavender-navy traveled up and down his hunched figure. X grumpily reflected that he looked like hell froze over, micro-waved and sporked to death by a four-year-old. Except the 'four-year-old' happened to have huge strength enhanced muscles, a one-eyed mask, a creepy Jack the Ripper vibe and the strangest fetish for beating the living day-lights out of local cat-burglars.

Several holes gaped wide across his back where one of Slade's more violent attacks had launched him into a barbed wire fence and shredded the outer-lay of the battle suit. A delicate web of circuits and nano-tech glittered naked and exposed in the darkness. The entire suit, though it looked like simple black cloth, was in fact composed of complex electronic networks that ranged from speed boosters, vibro-portation technology, pressure release pads and shock absorbers all built silk flexible and equally weightless.

For all the good it had done him, X wished he'd just worn jeans, sneakers and a nice warm jacket. At least then he could worry about running instead of freezing.

"However," Raven went on. "I don't think you got the hard-ware beat out of you by any average gang-banger."

"You could say that," X replied.

The girl studied him a moment longer, agitating the burglar who waited patiently for her to make the first move so he could counter-attack. He simply didn't have the energy to make the initial effort tonight. However the young woman only drifted a couple feet lower and narrowed dark, orbs at him. Could she read minds? The thought unsettled the burglar and he began to mentally chant a series of song lyrics. Just in case.

"You're hand is broken," she said suddenly.

X glanced at his twisted fingers and then back at her. "Yeeee-aah?"

"You're whole hand is smashed."

"Only a few fingers."

Raven didn't say anything for a moment, glaring at him until finally she spoke again. "Did he hold you down and break them or did you punch him too hard?"

X twitched almost imperceptibly and Raven – in a very familiar fashion – picked imaginary lint from her shoulder.

"Both are plausible since Slade's…you know…a sadist or whatever, but if you think you're good I can go re-set the security and wait for your corpse to wash up somewhere," the remarkably cold-voiced teenager said, all while watching him. "Or…you can give me the zynothium ore and I'll think about letting you camp-out in the Tower."

The straight-forward offer plucked a chord somewhere in the thief's sense of humor and X suddenly double over laughing hysterically into a snowdrift. Raven, in contrast, frowned and allowed a low growl to emit from the back of her throat. Red X rocked back on his heels and threw back his head to stare up into the cascade of dancing flakes overhead, chuckling all the while.

"That's a good one, babe. But how about 'no'." X leaned backward far enough to glare up at her nearly upside down, dark skull-eyes narrowing. "I'm a big boy. I'll take care of myself."

"Not what it sounded like on the communicator," Raven returned, voice dripping in all her dark humor.

X shrugged. "No one's infallible. So sue me. I'm fine now, thanks for your concern though."

"My heart bleeds," she said in a voice one usually associated with agreeing to nail your foot to the floor, "but as much fun as it would be to watch Slade rip your arms out of joint-,"

"Been done," X broke in pleasantly. "Oh I'm sorry, Please go on. You're kinda hot when you're pissed."

Raven's turn to twitch came and she didn't miss out; her left eyebrow jerking in irritation. She opened her eyes –burning like mini gates to hell – and pinned him with a stare like voodoo needles. X only laughed his usual infuriating laugh and goaded her into a small rage that few could awaken within her. A couple pebbles beneath the snow imploded and Raven lifted a glowing black hand, a brittle smile on her lips.

"Keep talking and I'll make Slade seem cute as a button," she said sweetly. Then she glared and her voice grew murderer-ish. "Don't talk while I'm cutting you a deal or I'll cut something far more _precious_ off your person."

X paused and wisely made no reply though about twenty lewd comebacks leapt to mind. He listened quietly, smirking to himself while the Titan lowered her hand and grew calm once again. Looking for all the world like a sagely teen she continued.

"I'll let you stay in the Tower out of the blizzard if you give me the belt and never leave my sight," she said flatly. "Tell me everything you know about Slade and I might let you walk out of the Tower without mental trauma."

X let her know just how much he liked her offer by examining his toes and doodling an inane little picture in the snow.

Raven clenched her hands and seemed to consider whether or not she could make _him_ implode. X looked up with a bored kind of air about him and shook his head at her. The girl glowered at him, obviously not enjoying his sarcasm. Yet she still made no move to attack and like X said before he really didn't feel like starting a quarrel his ribs weren't up to. Yeesh. And he'd taunted _Robin_ for taking life to seriously? At least he stressed about living; this girl looked willing to casually tango with the Grim Reaper.

"Alright, I'll bite. But first answer me one question." Raven seemed to be listening so he went on. "Are you crushing on me or do you just like inviting strange burglars into your high-security anti-crime headquarters?" X asked, sounding amused if not tired.

"I'll crush you if you'd like," she replied.

"Let me keep the belt and I'll come in," X said, hoping he sounded as obstinate as that had seemed in his head.

"You act like I want you in there!" she spat without actually getting angry. "Sorry to deflate your ego, but I'd rather eat a Stank-ball. I only want one thing from you, X"

The thief weighed horrible, nightmarish demise to getting in a good comeback and vouched for the comeback.

"Well, would you rather be on top or bottom? Because I prefer being on top."

The snow between X's knees exploded and a spray of white ice and the thief flipped backward in a fluid, but hasty, retreat. Raven loomed up in front of him with death in her expression as she eyed the lewd cat-burglar.

"Don't make me castrate you. You tell me everything you know about Slade and I'll make sure you live to see the New Year," she said. "You can keep the belt, but you have to wear cuffs. Fair enough?"

X considered the sheer stupidity of what he was considering. After a moment he laughed and offered up his wrists to the waifish Teen Titan.

"What the hell. I like shooting myself in the foot. Cuff me, babe."

-t-h-i-e-f-

Aqualad didn't usually ignore good advice.

He prided himself on possessing a quick wit and logical mind to keep up with his stream-lined physical performance. Umm…not to sound arrogant, but rather literally, the Atlantian had a very stream-lined physique. Honestly! It came from sixteen years of almost non-stop swimming through the depths of the ocean and chatting about swimming techniques with barracudas and dolphins.

The dark-eyed telepath didn't often dwell on physical appearance seeing how mirrors were taboo in the undersea world. Reflective surfaces caught the light and attracted dangerous predators.

Aqualad obviously had nothing to worry about as far as aquatic grudge-holding fish, but if he didn't sense it coming animals were animals and hungry flesh-eaters had no qualms about whose flesh they bit if not forewarned. Sharks weren't bright. They tested everything by biting it so Aqualad avoided unnecessary risk by simply not owning a mirror of any sort.

Anyway, back to the previous train of thought: Good advice and deciding to ignore it like he chose to now.

The water funneled and whirled in the teenager's wake as he swam swiftly through the dark, underwater world. His shoulder length mane of jet-black hair swept back off his forehead, rippling behind his head and shoulders as he shot through the water. His colorless, black eyes naturally adjusted to the darkness associated with deep undersea swimming. The tiniest glitter of light in the night sky prismed through the water and gave the lone Atlantian visibility in what would otherwise be a lightless world.

Flashlights weren't recommended in the ocean either; too many edible and bioluminescent fish to risk it.

Aqualad frowned and drifted to a slow stop as the dark, tangled silhouettes of human nets and inert combing machinery loomed and glittered in the water before him. Raven's words rang true in his mind coupled with a pang of resentment toward the land dwellers. 'Combing' the seafloor stood as one of the most selfish and destructive of land-human economic habits.

They first netted off the chosen area to prevent boating traffic. Then they dropped long, metal rods with sharp teeth horizontally on one end and dragged it to the other, raking up all the valuable seafloor life: coral reef, small, delicate ecosystems, and small, slow moving bottom-feeders. Merchandise in land-dweller language. Unfortunately, it seemed several dolphins got themselves caught up in the netted area. Their distressed chattering had been filling the underwater currents for hours and the entire bay had become agitated by the human disturbance.

Naturally, he went to investigate. Dolphins happened to be some of the most intelligent and friendly animals in the ocean. The teenager had a special kind of compassion toward the playful creatures and usually went out of his way to help them. From what the local dog-fish population had seen the mammals couldn't be more than a couple months into young adulthood and inexperienced where humans were involved.

The Atlantian kicked forward andtangled his fingers through the wide netting. Leaning close, he peered through the loops of knotted rope and squinted about for any sign of life. The waters pressed silently against his ears, the voices of the local sea-life silenced by the hushed fear of humanity. Nothing. He pumped his legs, slicing through the water to his left, moving toward shore.

_Hello?_ he thought loudly into the vast forests of poorly roped netting. _I heard someone asking for help? Are you caught in the nets?_

No reply.

Aqualad's anxiety doubled. Dolphins needed air every fifteen minutes. If they stopped responding, perhaps their time had run out before he reached them. Sudden panic made the Atlantian abandon self-preservation and he quickly kicked for the surface. Breaking the surf a moment later he gasped, lungs instantly reverting to secondary muscles built to accept pure oxygen. A swirling world of black sky and falling whiteness momentarily stunned his eyes, but he recovered and knifed through the waves for the buoys, making the nets' location.

He snatched a handful of the netting, gathering the top of the ropes and pulling himself over the netting and into the quarantined combing section.

Plunging back into the water, he shot through the water like a black-haired missile, bee-lining for the shallows where he'd last hears the distressed dolphin's mind. Where? Where? Where! The Atlantian spun about, bubbles trailing from the young man's lips as he searched the empty water desperately for the dolphins he knew he heard. Hoping beyond hope to hear them, the telepath touched his fingertips to his temple and focused on spanning his mind through the wide-carrying ocean currents.

_Hello? Are you there? Please answer me, I want to help_, he said into the watery void around him.

"…"

Then…a faint, reverberating clicking.

A faint chatter of dolphin thought echoed weakly in the articulated waterways. Aqualad shook his head, startled by the message in the animal's speech. Flipping smoothly, the Atlantian reversed and torpedoed through the water for the shoreline.

The water brightened so suddenly the teenager threw an arm up to shield his delicate eyes until they adapted to the luminance of the shallows. The rocky bottom inclined sharply upward and the aquatic Titan surfaced just under the nearly vertical face of a rocky cliff. The tide-line was low and the steep rock wall twice it's usual over the waterline. Undaunted, the teenager grabbed the first jutting rock and pulled himself out of the water, scaling the cliff face with slow, but steady confidence.

He didn't have great land legs, but he knew enough to let his natural strength get the job done. Going carefully, the kindhearted Atlantian boosted himself over the cliff's edge and found what he'd been searching for. Lying, belly-down, draped in heavy, water logged towels sat the two missing dolphins.

Sighing in relief, Aqualad lurched to his feet and walked over to kneel beside the two frightened creatures. Finding the younger one, he calmed the panicked mammal, stroking the rubbery skin of its smooth gray head and soothing frantic thoughts with calming words of his own.

"Hey, buddy. It's okay now. I'll get you guys back in the water. It's too dry for you out here and too cold for me," he said, rubbing the animal's nose.

Round, black orbs stared up at the Atlantian with the child-like trust of an animal. He smiled and turned to the second dolphin, wondering how he'd move two adolescent dolphins all by himself. He hardly noticed –nor cared to – the broke down docking and warehouses behind him or the dark outline of long abandoned shipping crates.

"Working alone?" inquired a drawling male voice.

Aqualad spun so fast, the snow sprayed up and rained down again, sprinkling his long, dark tresses and glittering against the mid-night black strands. Fists up, legs braced for attack the teenager didn't look for an instant like he'd spent his life in the water instead of solid ground. His obsidian eyes narrowed as a shadowy figure broke away from the shadows of the nearby wharf and stepping out of hiding.

"I always work alone," he said emphatically, circling away from the man as he approached.

"That's too bad," said the stranger, his deep voice, haunting and almost hypnotic. Aqualad didn't trust that voice and backed up yet another step, keeping some distance between them. The stranger's body glittered, or rather the silver body armor strapped across his broad chest and shoulders. His entire body clothed in black and equipped with combat tech didn't ease the Atlantian's mind in the slightest.

"Did you do this?" he demanded, gesturing to the stranded dolphins. "Well? If you did you'd better have a really _fantastic_ explanation or I'm going to seriously _ruin_ your Christmas."

The man stopped a couple yards off and chuckled, folding powerful arms and watching him through the falling storm of white flakes. The featureless metal of the mask glinted and Aqualad gasped in realization. Robin's weekly crime reports rarely came without some mention of the former criminal mastermind whether in direct relation or some obscure connection to the man – if one considered 'man' the proper pronoun – who seemed to have his hand in every niche of crime in Jump City.

"You're Slade," Aqualad said, lowering his arms and glaring at the criminal. "You're supposed to be dead. Robin's reports-,"

"Are greatly exaggerated," the man interrupted. From the short distance between them the aquatic teen could see the cruel glint of his single eye on the left half of his mask. Suddenly, he felt a hot anger so blinding the level-headed young man barely restrained his urge to leapt at the adult and punish him for the horrors he'd inflicted upon his friends, human and animal alike. The Atlantian managed to rein back his sudden blood-lust and instead kept talking.

"What do you want? Dolphin-napping seems below you," he said shortly.

"Oh, it is," Slade laughed, his audible amusements dancing through the night air and slithering across Aqualad's ears like warm oil. Suddenly he cut off his laughter and went horribly still. "But real kidnapping – though somewhat old fashioned – is not beneath me, Atlantian."

The dark-eyed boy tensed, bracing himself for a fight. "What do you want with me?"

"Nothing. Only your voice," the man said and began walking toward the teenager, malicious intent radiating from every line and contour of his body. Aqualad, instincts vibrating, stepped back toward the edge of the cliff, preparing to dive off and escape the psychopathic terrorist. The man chuckled again, making the boy's skin crawl and stopping him momentarily. Slade pulled a small black object from behind his back, two small prongs glinting menacingly.

The aquatic Titan halted, his entire body freezing in a way unrelated to the snow.

Slade seemed amused and he fondled the weapon. A low buzzing whine floated through the cold air, carried on the biting wind to fill Aqualad's skull with the noise. Sparks leapt from betwixt the two metal prongs, casting pale flashes across Slade's unfeeling mask and exposing the sadistic glitter in his gaze.

"You know what a tazer is then. Good," he said in a slow and friendly manner. "Now, being such an expert on undersea life…"

Slade broke off and crouched next to the first, youngest dolphin and lowered the electrified currant passing through the prongs, dangerously close to the animal's dripping, and water-drenched skin. The teenager gasped, a soft 'no!' escaping his lips before he could think to prevent them. Slade stopped short, eyes on the rigid and wide-eyed Atlantian.

"What do you think one-thousand volts could do to a wet dolphin? Stop its heart? Make its arteries implode perhaps?" He gestured with the tazer, wide gaze alight with insanity. "Would you like to see?"

"No! Don't!" the teenager shouted. He stepped away from the edge of the cliff and raised his arms non-threateningly. "I won't run. I promise. Please don't."

"Come here, then dear boy. I'll spare the animals only if you obey everything I tell you," he said as if merely discussing a slight issue of conflicts betwixt them. "Come here and do hurry. I think the cold is making me shiver. Wouldn't want a slip, would we?"

Burning, but helpless to his own compassion, the Atlantian slowly moved to obey. Hands curled into tight fists, a muscle along his jaw-line jumped as he gritted his teeth in hapless rage. Slade's eyes narrowed and he flipped the tazer off. Aqualad sighed slightly, breath fogging. The criminal seemed to smile beneath the mask and reached out a hand to lay it almost gently across Aqualad's head, palm easily covering the top of his skull.

The boy cringed, and clenched his eyes shut, shoulders taunt with rage.

"Let the dolphins go," he whispered, voice husky.

"Done. Now keep your eyes closed."

The hand on top of his head slowly pushed him down, obviously looking to put him on his knees. Instinctively, Aqualad struggled to stay standing, pride refusing to go down before anyone. Slade's fingers became claws on his scalp, raking across his head and grabbing up a handful of his glossy, black hair. The Atlantian groaned sharply, and clenched his teeth in pain as the man's hold twisted his head to one side. Suddenly, Slade wretched him down with such spontaneous power the boy lost his footing and fell hard. His cheekbone smacked the icy ground and white stars exploded through his vision.

"Better. Now give me the Titan communicator on your belt or I can break your neck this time."

The gentle voice didn't match. A large hand wrapped around his neck and lifted Aqualad from the snow, choking him as he groped at Slade's wrists. The teenager's lips mouthed silently, no air passing his tongue as the man throttled him. No, Slade needed his voice or something, right? He wouldn't actually kill him.

Aqualad hung in desperately for almost fifteen seconds.

You know…seconds become centuries when you're choking.

Aqualad had never choked or been deprived of air before in his entire life. Obviously he couldn't drown so holding his breath had never seemed a wise skill to practice. He never understood how men, who go under for only a moment, could drown. He never quite grasped the sensation of time stretching just for your personal torment. He discovered this horrific fact first hand and Slade didn't miss a single moment of the Atlantian's growing terror. When the grip did not slacken the teenager finally panicked.

Abandoning every thought or logical process the telepath exploded into a flurry of violent motion. Punching and kicking with the frantic abandon only a drowning victim can understand, Aqualad, for the first time, realized the horrific reality of suffocation. Slade, however, didn't budge an inch no matter how powerful the punch or devastating the kick, he only stood there, fingers squeezing tighter and tighter. Aqualad beat his fist uselessly against the larger man's chest armor. Fingers numbing on the steely surface as his lungs burned with pain he hadn't known possible.

Slade leaned down over the dying Atlantian, lowering his featureless mask intimately close to the young man's, pale, but striking face. His gaze never left that of the teen in his grasp, fascinated, it seemed, by the desperation and primal fear in his obsidian eyes as life fled his body. Aqualad twisted, lips forming a silent cry for help as very real tears burst from those eyes.

"So strong…" he murmured softly. He seemed to relax his grip, letting Aqualad slide back and allowing him to tiniest taste of a breath, "but still only children…all of them."

He tightened the hold, thumb sliding up the side of the boy's damp neck and his victim's head fell back, face forced up as Slade accessed the rest of his throat. He was going to crush his trachea.

Unable to speak, or break the murderer's hold on him, Aqualad did the one thing he could possibly do.

He screamed.

The soundless, sonic explosion of mental speech launched the entire ocean into chaos for miles around. Dolphins keened and chattered in pain, their own vibration language impeded by the sudden, deafening roar in their brains. Schools of fish scattered in flashing darts of scales, confused and lost. Whales breeched the surf against and again, throwing themselves clear of the watery constrains where the boy's screams resonated through the waves.

Whaling ship off the shore rocked violently as the giant animal threw themselves against the bow of the boat, crashing into the heavy vessel in manic desperation. Sharks flew into frenzies as the telepath's agonized, scream dominated every aquatic mind for miles.

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note: **Sorry for being late. I was otherwise preoccupied. (Video games…must beat Prince of Persia…must Beat Tales of Symphonia…must PLAY!) Ahem…Thanks for all your reviews. I hope you liked the update. Slade's evilness will not stop at just X. Start sweating. I have no idea how I should end this…


	5. Playing Dirty

**Playing Dirty**

_Slade kills people. I'm just selfish._ _– Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

_Crack!_

"AHH! Where'd you get your medical degree? Boot camp?" screamed the patient.

Leaping away from the 'examination table' he bounded up the side of several large wooden crates like a startled cat and perched atop the uppermost box, mimicking said animal in such replication his companion experienced the sudden desire to laugh, though she vouched to merely glare instead. About twenty feet up from the dusty floor and five crates up, Red X crouched and glared menacingly down at his unwanted caretaker. His unharmed left hand massaged the wrist of his throbbing right, causing the silver chain about his wrists to jangle in audible reminder of…

…how much reality sucked right now.

Little devils of pain danced across his fingers, stomping little golf-cleat clad feet all up his arm and into his shoulder (which had already undergone the thrilling experience of dislocation) where they promptly raced up his spinal cord to his brain and made havoc with his pain processors. Not as mind-blindingly horrible as a dislocated shoulder, but X didn't like to subjugate himself to pain when given the choice and he liked it even less when people imposed pain on him.

…especially without warning and under the pretense of being helpful.

"Wow…_that_ was really macho," drawled his substitute nurse, gliding up to float lazily along side the top-most box.

Raven smiled ever so thinly at her disgruntled companion, shapely arms folded comfortably over her breast. Her dark, impenetrable eyes shimmered beneath the shadows of her hood as she drifted carelessly, enjoying his discomfort with a happy kind of sadism. Her pale skin, ashen enough to be rainy-day gray seemed to glow with unnatural light in the untouched mustiness, lending her flesh (when not shrouded by her cloak) a pale nimbus.

"Define 'macho'," he replied sourly.

"Hmm… too many comebacks…couldn't decide," Raven droned, sounding particularly vampire-ish as she did.

The thief glanced at his tormentor and briefly envisioned her in dominatrix leathers. Yep, yep. Skintight cat-suit, whip and spiked collar would defiantly suit her black-as-hell personality, though he prayed to the Lord above that she couldn't hear him think that. X estimated the time around one AM. Roughly half an hour since the thief allowed Raven to slap cold silver-cuffs around his wrists in exchange for housing at Titan Tower.

Or rather the basement…

X snorted, and rotated his wrists, grimacing as a sharp stab of pain ground warningly up his arm again. The golf-demons of agony scowled and discussed amongst themselves what to do with this idiot who didn't seem to acknowledge pain.

"Stop being childish. You still have a dislocated finger," she said thinly, ignoring his muttered protests about fixing it himself.

The gothic Titan glided closer and extended a thin hand of slender, artist hands, clever and supple. X eyed her upturned palm with mild interest, forgetting that her outstretched limb implied some kind of meaning behind it. Raven arched a brow, thin crescent tracking toward her hairline as he peered at her hand.

"You know…" X said, rocking back on his heels. Raven blinked at the larcenist. He grinned through the skeletal mask. "You have a pick-pocket's hands."

"And you have a broken one. Let me see it," the girl replied impatiently, gesturing he move closer.

Red X sighed in irritation and slowly unfurled his arm, extending his darkly gloved limb toward her and letting the enchantress take his hand, the links connecting the twin hoops about his wrists. She gingerly laid it palm up in her own fingers and moved to feel the breakage. X leaned in a bit to watch her ministrations, wary, should she attempt to ram the bone back in place without warning.

"You know...I could do this myself..." X said. "If you took the cuffs off."

"Yeah. Not gonna happen," she said, dragging out the 'ye' part in 'yeah' and artfully ennuciating the vowels of 'gonna' and 'happen'.

Raven examined the slight dimple beneath the glove where his knuckle usually took residence. She frowned and ran a slim finger down the length of his injured digit, her pale skin bright against the black cloth of his glove. X twitched imperceptibly at the oddly personal gesture. Whether a result of extended isolation or slight dementia; the thief couldn't quite stop the sudden stream of shivers trickling down from the sensitive pad of his finger up to his elbow.

"Thanks," she muttered under her breath, thankfully oblivious to his jittery reaction.

X said nothing.

Raven's elegant fingers slid beneath his broken one and delicately took it between her thumb and index finger. She glanced up at him, meeting his gaze. X took the chance to say something to aid his own wellbeing.

"This time warn me befor-,"

_Crack!_

"AH! DAMN IT!"

X yanked his throbbing hand out of Raven's grip and darted a couple crates lower.

She didn't quite smile, preferring to seat herself comfortably atop the highest box and look down at the cursing cat-burglar. He lurched to his feet and shook his wrist out – chains clinking merrily as he did – a dark little niche in his heart harboring secret lust to break the gothic-heroine's neck. Though…now that she'd finished he felt much better; except for the hairline fracture he could feel running through his index finger the pain had already faded to a dull thrum.

A soft whisper of cloth and motion alerted the thief to his companion's action behind him. He half turned to face the dark Teen Titan who landed gently on the crate next to him; far enough away to radiate her distaste for him but close enough to touch. The girl lifted her slender hand to grasp her hood and pull it back from her face, tossing it back over her shoulders with a quiet 'poof'.

"The bone is still broken," she said tonelessly.

Raven didn't even bother to ask this time. She marched across the crate, violet tresses swinging violently as she stomped across the wood toward him, obviously expecting resistance. X, unnerved by the freakish determination in her face, backed up nervously and after voicing a pointless protest –something along the lines of 'Get the heck away from me you sadist!'– tried to make a break for it.

Raven, however, came prepared for his antics and lifted her arms, readily, hands glowing. She flicked her wrist and instantly a swathe of black energy painted itself over the silver links fastening the cuffs about his wrists and an instant later the cat-burglar found himself whipped hard into the crate behind him.

_Thud_!

His head banged the wood uncomfortably and he hissed in surprise.

"Ow! What is it with you and hurting people?" he snarled.

Looking up, he saw the blackened links of his handcuffs pinned high against the crate behind him, trapping his hands over his head. Raven ignored him fabulously and merely hopped into the air to examine his hands. The thief complained audibly under his breath, knowing full-well the stiff-necked Raven could hear every word. After calling her a couple names along the lines of 'paranoid, sadistic vulture woman', he squirmed a bit against his bonds, knowing full well that picking the lock right beneath Raven's nose wouldn't do him much good.

As if to reply, but not actually bother to speak, the young woman delicately pinched the cloth at the tip of his middle finger and drew it off his hand.

X instantly clamped his hand shut and yanked himself up from the ground, pulling his entire body up using the handcuffs as his handhold. He coiled his entire body up and lashed out a hard, liquid quick kick with his leg, hoping to drive the Titan away from his exposed hand. A pang of sudden realization caused X to break into a cold sweat. If she managed to pin him long enough she could walk away with his fingerprint and for all intents and purposes –

- his identity.

Raven, however, proved too clever not to expect such a reaction from him and veered carelessly out of reach. Foiled, X fell back against the crate behind him with a bang, his heels hitting the wood with a reverberating sound as he tensed for conflict. The girl, naked face pale and coldly amused, flicked her wrist and black energy coiled his ankles, pinning them to the box as well and leaving him hanging by his wrists.

_Oh great_, X thought unpleasantly, _she knows that I know that she knows she has the upper hand and she's playing it up. My dignity – along with my ribs – has taken a severe beating tonight, that's for sure._

"You know," she remarked slowly, her drab voice velvety and mordant in his ears. "I could take off your mask _riiight_ here and that would be the end of it."

X narrowed his eyes up at her, lowered his head to more effectively leer at his tormentor. Her demure and emotionless features matched his own inexpressive skull face, actually lowering herself to his level in order to meet his gaze. He laughed shortly, the faltering distortion in his voice-waves making the noise sound almost primal.

"Then go ahead and do it," he laughed, challengingly, voice harsh a bitterly expectant. "If you're so damn clever, go ahead and do it, but remember: Slade _kills_ people. I'm just selfish."

His voice came out far more venomous than X himself had even expected and he paused forebodingly, black sockets glaring up at the teenager. Raven hesitated, looking strangely put out. Something about his approach on the subject seemed to rub her the wrong way and she stared down at him for a long moment, her dark eyes gleaming like twin pools of navy ink in the darkness.

She took his bare hand and eased it open with a lick of energy, not even looking at the burglar as she did.

X heaved a sigh and relaxed, knowing that his criminal protests fell on deaf ears. Instead he closed his head and waited for her to take his print and stomp the hell out of his life in one fell swoop. Her fingers against his – he felt irritated to notice – felt cool and oddly soothing. He could almost feel the throbbing in his broken hand fading away and even the sting of broken skin across his knuckles slowly seemed to vanish, a strange kind of relaxation stealing over the thief despite his predicament.

"There," Raven said suddenly.

Her energy left the cuffs and his ankles simultaneously and as good old Issac Newton theorized, gravity did its work and dropped X on his belly. He found catching one's self is difficult when you're hands are cuffs. He growled in fury, lifting his masked features from the dusty wood crate to glare at Raven in a sinister kind of way. /However, he stopped his anger short and replaced it with admiration as he raised his hand and turn it over, inspecting the limb. The mottled blue, blacks and yellows had completely given way to pale and healthy skin, swelling receded to nothing and all pain of discomfort had fled from his bones.

A soft something landed in the dust next to his still cuffed wrists and he stared at it a moment. In the dust, lay his glove, black and flat without his sticky-fingers to fill it.

Raven, meanwhile, settled on the ground below him, looking downright murderous.

"I let you off the hook this time only because Slade is a much bigger fish than you," she said acidly. "Now why in the Nine Hells would Slade track your worthless person across Jump City?"

X massaged his wrist a moment, slipping his glove on with a business-like kind of attitude. Raven watched, amused and irritated as the thief retired against the side of the nearest crate, throwing himself in a pile against the box and yawning. Whether he moved to get away from her, or simply to stall for time she didn't bother to contemplate.

"He's a psychopath?" X said sweetly.

Raven narrowed her eyes. "Tell you what. Roll over and I'll heal the rest of those bruises if you tell me something useful." X eyed her for a moment and, sensing possible mockery, she went on to un-sugarcoat her offer. She scowled and tacked a threat to the end of her words. "Otherwise, I can tie you up and hang you off a street light somewhere for Slade to find."

"Yum…" remarked X unhappily and, to her surprise, obliged by moving back over to her and turning onto his belly. He folded his arms under his chin and patiently waited for her next ministration, looking strangely feline, lithe, black frame stretched across the length of the crate. Raven paused; pondering why the, oh so suspicious, Red X would yield to her offer – however kind or logical – and put himself in an almost subservient or vulnerable position.

She smiled thinly and leaned about to look at the thief whom lifted his gaze to hers.

"You want to know how I did that don't you?"

X made a derisive noise and presumably closed his eyes. "Not at all, though I admit, it was a pretty shway move."

"Shway?" Raven repeated the slang, voice slow to form the vowels.

X nodded, laying his featureless head on his battered arms and discouraging further talking. If she didn't hurry, the young cat-burglar would go to sleep on her. She stored the crumb of information I her head for later exploitation and after vigorously rubbing her palms together, placed her hands in the small of his back. He shivered slightly at her touch and Raven eyed him suspiciously before proceeding.

She closed her eyes, feeling a soft tide-like source of gentle power ebbing up from inside her. Parting the darkness of her energies, the healing magicks rippled teasingly down her arms, lingering at her elbows before flowing down her arms and down through her fingertips. Raven felt her heart rate dawdle, her breathing deepen and slow as the cool and soothing sensation of repairing a bruise life-force and figure radiated through her body.

X, in similar fashion, relaxed beneath her hands, every muscle and ligament uncoiling under her ginger power. The cool sedative, in combination with his exhaustion had pretty much knocked the outlaw into Dream World. The gentle rise and fall of his chest came in the slow even rhythm of sleep and Raven distantly cursed herself for allowing him to doze off.

Raven withdrew her hands suddenly, disgusted that she even considered doing this for him. _Miserable, rotten pick-pocket,_ she thought, _just some common burglar, desperate to be a desperado and thinking himself clever. Too smart for his own well-being._

But then how did X, little common criminal, bad – but not that – bad, Red X, manage to impress and/or piss off Slade so?

Raven glared down at the larcenist's sprawling figure, sleek and dark like some kind of catlike shadow (save the ripped fabric and skull-bleached face-mask) she couldn't see anything so very special about this thief. Not small time criminal, but not in the same league as Slade or even trouble-makers like Johnny Rancid who destroyed lives for the rush. Red X struck her as intelligent, arrogant and generally self-centered, but not ruthless.

Lacking conscience, but not like Slade…

-Bad but not terrible.

X liked to play games, laugh, and prank and jest at all the fun frustrations he could inflict upon authority, super heroes or otherwise. He ranked as a mere delinquent compared to Slade or some of the other criminals infesting Jump City. Raven frowned as X shifted slightly in his sleep and tapped her finger against her arm.

Why this one from all the others out there? Why would Slade hunt down X? Had he found some kind of dirt of the criminal master-mind? Walked in on Slade's territory? Interfered with a plan or become a danger? He just didn't match up. Red X didn't fit the profile of the kind of criminal Slade wanted on his side.

Raven paused, thinking on her previous thoughts.

"Slade wouldn't even hunt him as a 'good-guy'. Why does Slade want you?" Raven muttered to the burglar's still form.

He didn't answer, instead, curling up, arms pillowed his head and breathing so softly Raven mused he seemed sneaky even while unconscious. Red X muttered something under his breath and drew his arms against his chest, then going still again.

Raven hovered, cross-legged in the air a moment, a curious string tugging in the back of her mind as her thoughts mulled over the strangeness of both the thief and the events pursuing in his wake. Reflecting on a book she'd once read about sleep positions and a segment on the personality inflections represented by sleeping arrangements she compared what she recalled of the analysis to her unwelcome companion.

Recently, Raven had made a quick study of her team mates to see if the book had any basis in truth and found, though vague, the text held partial truth. Those who, like Starfire and Beast Boy, slept limp and open and sprawled everywhere, were usually cheerful, trustworthy, quick to trust and open in friendship. Others might call them naive, innocent or fallible.

Individuals like Robin, slept on their side, one arm beneath their head and easily awakened. These people often characterized themselves with decent relationships with others, suspicion, obsessive habits, competitive compulsion and paranoia.

Cyborg…slept on a table…'nuff said.

Red X, however, slept tightly curled, arms huddled to his chest with his legs drawn up. Character traits for this position: mild obsessive compulsion, extremely unsociable, neurotic, restless, adopts strangely personal ethics, habits, rituals etc, aversion to authority. Raven didn't think this personification matched X's cocky, tough as nails, charisma, though perhaps his thievery could fall under the category of obsessive habits Raven thought perhaps, this time, it could be a fluke in her method.

Or…X didn't have it all like he said he did.

Raven's communicator bleeped urgently at her hip, jolting her rudely from her thoughts and bringing her back to the dark and dusty reality that resided in the basement around her. Startled and annoyed, the dark-eyed teenager slid the round Titan radio from her cloak and flipped it open…

…except no one seemed to have called. Momentarily perplexed, the young enchantress searched her person briefly for a separate source of such a sound.

Beep-_beep_-boop-boo-_boop_-_boob_-boop-boop-_boop_! –rang out the merry Titan ring tone and Raven curse Robin a thousand fold for letting Beast Boy choose the melody programmed into the communication tech. Leave it to the changeling to pick the most infuriating jingle on the face of the planet! After a couple verses of the Teen Titan ring tone, the girl had been driven to a murderous fixation by the noise and clawed around her garments in search of the awful sound-maker.

"Oh, sorry, that's me," said a cheerful voice, yawning slightly

"What?" she snarled whirling on the now wakeful X.

He ignored her fantastically and reached back to produce none other than Beast Boy's communicator from a hidden catch in his belt (not the zynovium belt but a thief needs his tools right?) and flipping it open. Raven snatched for the device, but the nimble larcenist yanked it out of her grasping fingers and rolled lazily off the side of the crate, managing to snag the edge of the box and hang there, chameleon style.

He smiled coyly (or at least Raven thought he did) and he whipped the communicator to his ear.

"Hullo," he said in a perfectly cheerful voice. "You've reached the Teen Titans, we're not available to save and/or come to your rescue. Please hold and remember… your call _matters_."

And he hung up.

The thief grinned that horrible, skeleton smile through his mask and rolled the little, yellow radio across the back of his fingers; enjoying the look of stunned rage on Raven's face. The girl didn't quite sputter like a typical girl might of but managed to look elegantly pissed off, both at his thievery and his smart-ass receptionist ploy.

"That could have been a serious call, you arrogant moron! Hand it over!" Raven spat, thrusting her arm at the thief who laughed maddeningly at her gravity.

"Oh come on. Who calls on a holiday?" X chuckled, and then stopped suddenly. "Oh!" He paused as if recalling something important then, soberly, added, "…and _merry_ Christmas, Raven."

He tossed something at her, hard. The girl cursed and slid beneath the projectile, snatching it with a swathe of translucent energy before realizing what she now held…

The handcuffs…which meant…

"X! You slime! This isn't part of the deal!" she shouted up into the rafters.

X, in the precious moment she looked away to catch the cuffs, had vanished. There came no reply and Raven cursed, pounding her fist against a crate and causing it to erupt in a detonation of metal, cloth and scraps long locked away to gather dust. For one horrifying instant, hot moisture dampened her lashes, but she blinked it away with a furious force of will. Shaking her hair from her eyes she clenched her teeth in fury…

Then smiled.

"You want to play dirty, thief?" muttered the girl. "Fine. Let's play dirty."

-t-h-i-e-f-

The call came shortly.

Ten minutes later perhaps. Red X, guilty and yet completely guiltless in the fact that he cared absolutely nothing about his sneaky deception, stood comfortably atop the glowing heights of WAYNE Labs. The giant electric letters, having been repaired multiple times glowed hot through the gentle fall of snow. The blizzard had finally subsided into a timid dusting of snow and the cat-burglar now completely functional, felt he now had the edge on Slade that he needed.

That horrible ring tone sang out from X's back pocket and with a self-satisfied little chuckle, Red-X reached into his belt compartment and flipped open the Titan communicator.

"Yeah?" he asked into the mouth piece, expecting Raven's surly demand for him to come back, or even some kind of lecture on honesty. The thief regretted not being able to use the Titans as a resource for his match against Slade, but it seemed a bit late to change his mind now. Robin made it clear he wouldn't play the game so X was on his own and probably better for it. Loners tended to work best…alone.

He amused himself with these thoughts until the answer finally drifted through the ear piece…and not only was it not Raven; the speaker said the one most horrible thing a thief could ever hear.

"Hello, Bannon…and merry Christmas."

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note:** Oh, you know, I know, you know I picked an eccentric name for our masked anti-hero! Get ready, because things are about to get…complicated, risk-_ay_ and dangerous…or that's what my Muse told me. Like romance? No? Me neither. I prefer cat and mouse. Enjoy! Suggestions? Critiques? Bring 'em on!


	6. Identity Crisis

**Identity Crisis**

_Betcha you could tell me my favorite color and shoe size too, huh? – Red X_

_-t-h-i-e-f-_

He woke up to a world of brilliant and blinding lights, instantly burning starbursts into the back of his retinas. The pain forced him to squint into the bright radiance. Wincing, he lifted and arm to shade his eyes from the glowing explosion of multi-hued illumination refracting through the water around him. After a moment of suspended animation the initial shock of the luminance began to fade.

Blinking rapidly, the aquatic young man lifted a hand to rub at his star-dazzled eyes, the lukewarm liquid around him shifting and swirling with his sudden motion. His looked around him, a stream of bubbles slipped from his mouth as he looked this way and that in search of some substantial landmark. What was this place? For a horrifying moment, he couldn't remember anything, where he was, what he'd been doing that day, his name…nothing. In a sudden panic, he kicked his legs powerfully and tried for the surface that logic dictated would be there and shot upward through the water.

Logic had nothing on this kind of situation…unfortunately for him.

He got roughly three feet and the top of his head crashed into a thick metal sealing cap of some sort. Head ringing, the teenager clutched his skull tightly in pain, feeling a bruise and a lump rising out of his scalp. For a moment he drifted inertly through the water, eyes dazed, brain scrambled. Then the back of his neck bumped into something cold and smooth, followed by the rest of his body, bouncing gently off the barrier in the low gravity of water.

The dark-eyed Atlantian (he did remember that much about himself) spun about, eyes growing wide in his good-looking face. He kicked himself forward and his palms met a cold plexi-glass wall, unblemished and gently curved beneath his splayed fingers. Through the murky distortions of light and crystal he could just make out the shape of steely computers, flickering screens and data read outs running mechanically throughout the dark room around him.

Suddenly, everything came rushing back. All the memories of the night before, Christmas Eve, going on patrol, Raven's warning; it all burst through whatever dam had held it back and flooded his brain. Aqualad sucked in a quick breath of water, pressing the heel of his hand against his pounding forehead. The dolphins, snow falling, he kept seeing this horrible mask, no air, and worst of all…Aqualad dropped his hand from his face, feeling a hot wash of hatred rush through him.

Slade.

Spinning a full one-eighty in the water he kicked off the glass behind him and knifed through the water…only to crash into the opposite side of the container. Stunned momentarily he sank through the water toward the bottom of the cylindrical tank. The crisscross metal mesh filtering the water vibrated gently beneath him as he jerked out of his daze, sudden urgency making him think more clearly.

The Atlantian turned himself over in the water and braced his feet against one side of the tank, then his hands against the other. Tensing, the teenager grunted and using every cord of muscle and sinew in his body tried to straighten out and force a crack in the plexi-glass. His enter body, though consisting of nothing but bone, muscle and strength born of an active lifestyle couldn't even get the stubborn tube to groan.

Attempt failed he stopped pushing and righted himself in the water. This time he planted his feet against the water and rebounded off the glass like a launched missal and rammed his shoulder against the opposite wall. The plexi-glass shuddered violently under the impact but didn't break.

Hopeful, the Atlantian pushed of the vibrating glass, planted his feet against the same wall and rammed his body against the clear wall once again. The entire frame of the tube shuddered and rocked, but remained thankfully anchored to the ground despite his escape efforts. Aqualad repeated this tactic of repeated rebound and ram for about five minutes.

Finally, after his twenty-fifth attempt, the exhausted teenager admitted defeat and let himself drift, neutrally buoyant through the warm liquid around him. Vying for a different, less abusive tactic, Aqualad grimaced to himself and looked upward. The soft greenish light issuing from the monitors outside the tank provided light enough to glint from the circular face of the hatch overhead.

Both sore and growing ever more despondent, the aquatic Titan kicked up to the top of the tank and ran sensitive fingertips along the cold metal surface. Nothing. Water tight even. The teenager back-paddled to a lower region of the water and floated there a moment, trying to judge the water pressure in the tank and whether or not the plan stewing in his head would really work…or was even worth trying. Feeling cornered, he took a breath to steady himself. Once gathered, he clenched his hand and stabbed his arm up through the water, obsidian eyes intense and focused, as if he would strike and shatter the heavy metal entry with his bare hands.

The water around him suddenly shifted and as if sucked by some incredible vacuum, formed a sudden and powerful current up toward the rim of the hatch. All the water in the tank, once unresponsive liquid had suddenly come to life with the purpose of charging and escaping the watery plexi-glass prison around him. The crest of water, though invisible save for a translucent ripples inside the tank, crashed up against the top of the tube, nearly tripling the water pressure inside the tank.

The glass groaned beneath the strain, metal casing about the base trembling as the tube holding the Atlantian began to strain.

Inside the tank, said Atlantian had began to shake and shudder, his outspread arms trembling with the strain of maintaining such a catastrophic amount of pressure. Already the infuriatingly durable container had stood up to pressures equal to that the oceans around Atlantis endured. Aqualad ground his teeth as the shaking in his arms doubled and the pressure increased, causing the glass to shudder, and vibrate ferociously, roaring and groaning under the force of the water.

If Aqualad hadn't been both strong and a seasoned Atlantian diver, the forces he'd created would have crushed his chest cavity into a bloody pulp and ground his bones to a fine, damp dust. However, to survive living in the harsh environments of the deep ocean, the residents of Atlantis had long evolved and adapted to the greater pressures thousands of leagues beneath the ocean's surface. However, the weight of the water around him had grown thick in his lungs, his body constricting in on itself as the force of the waters and his strength fast giving way.

In a last ditch effort, he shouted as loud as he could and both mentally and physically 'shoved' outward, his arms thrusting wide as his powers exploded inside the tank.

Unable to withstand the Atlantian's almost inhuman fortitude, the glass shattered like a dropped wine glass, erupting outward like a volcano of water. The metal hatch rocketed around the room as if launched from the barrel of a gun and glass shards embedded themselves in machinery or burst against the walls nearby.

Exhausted and gasping, Aqualad slumped to his knees on the metal-mesh platform, the vibrating filters still trying to filter non-existent water. The last of the liquid ran in thin streams down the sides of the steel podium, pooling around the base of the platform. Arms shaking and completely sapped of all strength, he could barely support his own weight while hunched over on the floor.

A moment of heavy breathing, followed by a breathless: "Well, that was fun…"

"Well, well. You've managed to break my toy," remarked a low, masculine voice from the shadows somewhere, sounding both aggravated and impressed. "I hadn't expected that kind of strength or obstinacy from a water-dwelling environmentalist. I applaud you."

The glimmer of victory and momentary hope snuffed out and Aqualad had a brief vision of Slade's boot stomping his head in. Suffice to say, said boot left a disappointed void to fill quickly with despair as the young Atlantian raised his head from his arms, strings of thick, black hair hanging in dripping strands from his shoulders and in his face. A figure stepped out from behind a nearby machine which spat dying sparks into the flickering lights about the room. The two-toned mask of Slade glinted in the fading light and the aquatic Titan heaved a bleak kind of sigh, part hopeless, mostly irritated.

Aqualad ran a hand through his hair, raking stray waves of inky strands from his eyes and managed to, with a slight tremble, push himself to his knees and sit up straight. Lifting his head, the handsome teenager managed a lenient kind of smirk at his captor though his well tanned skin had paled to a more sickly shade of parchment.

"Gee. I always want to be applauded by a murderer," he leered elegantly.

"Murderer? Dear boy, I simply test those I think are of potential. Those who fail…" Really _ugly_ pause here. "Are not my problem."

Aqualad smiled thinly. "You really think no one will look for me, don't know? I may work alone but I'm never _really_ alone, Slade."

The man seemed to smile through the mask, dark eyes glinting menacingly. "I never doubted it. Your friend Bumblebee should be receiving a tip off on an over the sea drug exchange. She'll be calling you for some back up right about…now."

Right on cue, an irritating ring tone pranced out on the airways. Aqualad started slightly and Slade leisurely reached behind his back and produced none other than Aqualad's Titan communicator. The boy's eyes grew round as the radio bleeped again into the electric silence around them. For a moment only the gentle sound of his ragged breathing could be heard, broken occasionally by the piercing Titan ring tone.

Slade stood there calmly, just watching his guest squirm uncomfortably. The ring tone sounded again and Slade finally pressed the open signal button. A moment later the familiar spunky and irritated voice of Bumblebee carried over through the mouthpiece.

"Hey! Aqualad? You there? Pick up I just got a hot tip," she said enthusiastically, if not a bit confused. "Are you there?"

Slade released the open signal, so nothing got back through to the perplexed female Titan.

"Decision time, Atlantian," said Slade evilly. "You can either calmly tell her you're just fine or…whatever else you choose to say. Frankly, I don't care either way. I'm in control here, Aqualad."

"Go to hell!" he snarled.

"Well, _excuse_ **_me_**!" spat Bumblebee's voice. Aqualad clapped a hand over his mouth in horror. "Not like I needed your help anyway, fish boy! Have a nice Christmas!"

"Oh," said Slade regretfully as the line went dead. "I must have accidentally hit the open radio switch. Terribly sorry. Now no one knows you're gone."

The Atlantian shook his head, lost and confused, but secretly knowing that even if Bumblebee didn't know he'd gone missing…Tramm would. "Why are you doing this?" he hissed. The water pooled around his wrists trembled imperceptibly. Aqualad felt his skin breaking into a cold sweat. "What possible reason could you have?"

Slade carefully placed the communicator on the top of the nearest smoking computer as if to taunt him. He chuckled casually at Aqualad's trepidation and stepped across a fallen monitor. The boy tensed and the puddles around the room twitched anxiously, but indiscernibly and he slowly pushed himself back off the platform and onto the floor, legs threatening to buckle beneath him as he placed his full weight on them. Tremors of shivery fatigue running up and down his arms and legs, the aquatic Titan backed up as Slade maneuvered through the debris toward him.

"Why are you keeping me here?" the teenager snarled, sidestepping a shattered computer.

Slade only continued to move toward him, circling the broken tank and narrowing his dark eyes. Memory of their last encounter zipping like a slide show through his head, the Atlantian hastily leapt back and fell back against the far wall, face harsh with sudden determination.

"Keep back!" he threatened, voice dangerous and husky. "Touch me and I swear I'll drown you!"

Slade laughed, voice wavering and echoing. "Doubtful, Atlantian. You could have never defeated me at full strength and certainly not weakened as you are." He stopped, spreading his arms out to gesture all around them. "There are no marine creatures here to help you. In the ocean you may be a threat of the highest caliber, but here you're just a fish out of water."

The 'fish out of water' managed a quirky kind of grin.

"And I'll bet anything you're a lousy swimmer," taunted Aqualad, his black eyes growing wicked.

His hand shot up and with it the placid waters pooled on the floor burst into life. The liquid exploded up from the stone like droplets of liquid predator and pounced at Slade, condensing into a single, giant snake of water and falling like some aquatic demon on the murderer. Aqualad, with a warm feeling of satisfaction, watched Slade's eyes grow wide right before the crest of water crashed down across his head and shoulders, sweeping him away in a frothing current of liquid.

Aqualad grinned wearily and dropped his arm, praying his assault had proved enough to at least stun the murderer. Body quivery with both adrenaline and fatigue, the teenager struggled to his feet, water dripping from his blue body suit and slowly receding into it natural state of unresponsiveness. Through the corner of his eyes, he could make out the eroded hole his sudden geyser had smashed into the far wall, taking Slade with it.

Stumbling clumsily over generator cords to machines he had no idea how to work, the dark-eyed Titan staggered and fell, his knees buckling halfheartedly under his weight. Too exhausted to care, Aqualad, crawled through the mess of cords and broken electronics to the darkened computer across the room.

Reaching up a quaking arm he managed to grab the rim of the cold metal machine and painfully lever himself up. The bright yellow casing of the Titan radio shown bright against the dankness around him and he snatched the precious device with a breath of relief.

"I'll get hold of the Titans. They know how to handle Slade," rasped the Atlantian, hitting the speed-dial for Beast Boy's communicator and silently thanking the changeling for his weekly swimming routine on which he always called and invited Aqualad.

He listened as the ring-tone sounded. There was a pause, and then the ring tone rang again. A sudden pang of apprehension lanced through his chest and he anxiously cast his gaze over his shoulder, scanning the room for Slade, should the criminal master mind return. The room remained cold, dripping and empty even as the tone sounded a third time, shadows looming menacingly around the lone Atlantian.

"C'mon, c'mon, pick up. Pick up, Beast Boy. Pick up," he chanted feverishly, eyes darting around the room.

_Click_.

'_Thank God!'_ Aqualad thought, breath leaving his lungs in a rush and he opened his mouth to tell Beast Boy what had…

"Hullo," said a perfectly cheerful, distorted and _not Beast Boy _voice. "You've reached the Teen Titans, we're not available to save and/or come to your rescue. Please hold and remember… your call _matters_."

And he hung up.

"The hell!" he shouted in horrified rage, stunned absolutely speechless. "Who in the name of Poseidon and Hades was _that_?"

"My apprentice," replied a nastily familiar voice. "Oh, and my gratitude, Aqualad."

The communicator was plucked from his fingers and the boy spun around to come face to face with Slade's featureless mask. Pitiless eyes narrowed, water trickling down the cool metal surface. He eyed his surprisingly resourceful captive. "I would have never suspected him to hide at Titan Tower. Now, thanks to you, I have means with which to contact him."

Feeling sick, Aqualad just sat there and stared up at the larger man, feeling particularly helpless in addition to ill. Slade slid the communicator away and crouched in front of the soaking Atlantian, water dripping from his body armor as he leveled his glare at the younger male. The teen grimaced, and narrowed his eyes, locking his jaw while fighting not to freak out.

"Now…there is the little matter of your breaking all my equipment, washing down my head-quarters, and trying to drown me," he said calmly, regarding Aqualad with a serene kind of gaze. "I can't have that kind of rebellion so I contacted a mutual friend of mine and he was kind enough to give me this."

On the words 'this' he lifted his hand in front of the boy's pale face. Held between his fingers, was what appeared to be a small silver hexagon. Set in the centre of the silver hexagon glittered a smooth, letter 'H'. Black eyes flew wide in horror and the Atlantian instantly recognized the symbol from the hundreds of police records, data files and snitch-reports he and Bumblebee had poured over the last couple months. His heart ricocheted off the inside of his ribcage as Slade snatched his shoulder and slammed him up against the computer consol.

He clapped his hands over his head, trying to shield himself.

"NO!" he cried, desperately trying to pry the man off him, but Slade simply had more strength.

His hand darted forward like a striking snake and Aqualad felt a sharp sting at the base of his skull, just beneath his hairline. A static buzz vibrated up his neck, cuing the device's activation. Seconds before the control frequency began, the Atlantian grappled madly with his captor, kicking and punching frantically until, suddenly all reason, need or want to do anything of the sort erased itself from his mind. The teenager shuddered and sank backward.

He mouthed something, lips moving silently as his identity gave one last dying twitch before succumbing to the siren song of the HIVE hypnosis.

Once ebony eyes glowed momentary crimson and faded back to inky black, calm and somewhat inquisitive as expected of all HIVE students. Slade released the teenager and stood, offering the younger man a hand up. The Atlantian smiled and took the presented aid, allowing himself to be pulled up, still shaky from his foolish escape attempt that suddenly he had no idea why he'd tried.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to cause all this trouble. I didn't understand," he apologized, genuinely mortified at his behavior. He ran a distressed hand through his hair and look up unhappily. "Forgive me, Headmaster."

Slade smiled forgivingly beneath the mask and clapped the aquatic teenager on the shoulder, as if he were a favored and long-time pupil and not the boy who tried to kill him in an escape attempt only moments before. Aqualad looked relieved and let the criminal master-mind guide him toward the doorway on the opposite side of the room.

"Don't concern yourself with it," he said understandingly and wise. "How are you feeling, Aqualad?"

The HIVE student (unknowingly a former Titan) rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Fine, Headmaster. Thank you."

"Good." Slade smiled again. "And I'd prefer it if you just called me 'Master'."

-t-h-i-e-f-

X's reaction, to say the least, wasn't good. He snapped the device off and actually lifted his arm as if to smash the radio and the voice that had issued from it into oblivion. Not very smooth. In fact, roughly a millisecond after he reacted, he kicked himself for it and sat in bated breath, waiting the recall he felt coming. Snow fell softly around him, the lingering memory of a once terrifying blizzard gone wimpy and petering out. X shuddered, feeling abnormally lightheaded and horrified by the implications this new complication aroused for him. Unpleasant trickles of nausea writhed somewhere in his belly, making his usually sound nerves jumpy as a jitter-bug all over again.

For him to know…to have figured it out…

It meant all that time he'd snuck around, laid low, played it safe, plotted, schemed and robbed under the false pretense of such secrecy and shadow; all that time someone else had followed him, watched and studied him under a magnifying glass, all while keeping below the burglar's radar. Once again, the cocky part of himself so used to having everything fall into his lap screaming something like 'WHAT THE UNHOLY TACO-TART! How the _hell_ is this freak pulling this off?'

…couldn't tell you where the taco-tart came from…

X felt his right hand give a small, involuntary tweak he hadn't troubled his thoughts with about since elementary school. He stared down at his treacherous hand for a moment, feeling an ill omen in the tiny muscle spasm. Then, as if to add to his discomfort, that freaking, abomination of a ring tone sounded again.

After a second, more voluntary twitch of the eye, he flicked the thing open, thankful when no holo-image appeared with it.

"Hey, there!" he began pouring on cheerfulness he didn't feel. "Sorry about not calling, but you know, the holidays. Hectic: traffic, sadistic relatives, bad fudge and all that jazz. And you know I could have sworn I heard you call me something strange? Brandon or something like that?"

"Oh no. Nothing quite so common," replied that familiar, hypnotic - but not because it was so terrifying - voice. "Bannon?" Here X performed a spastic, Shakespearian death-scene cringe and still managed not to make a sound. "Very unique, quite roguish. I suspect your parents were eccentric?"

"On my mum's side. Wait until you hear my middle name. It's a _real_ kick in the head," laughed the burglar while his stomach churned unhealthily.

"Yoko? Japanese fox spirit? Legendary for intelligence, slyness and penchant for thievery?"

The criminal's right had had a miniature seizure, and stiffened, jerking as if electrocuted from the elbow down. He cursed softly, but inaudibly to his tormentor on the other end. Shaking out his hand he furled and unfurled it experimentally and took several lung-deepening breathes.

"That's the one. Gee, the man does his homework," X cheered on the criminal mastermind. "Betcha you could tell me my favorite color and shoe size too, huh?"

Velvety chuckles slithered through the communicator. "Hardly, but I thought after the last fiasco with my apprentice I'd have to execute more than one tactic of persuasion to win you over to my cause."

"Hmm," said X, standing up and pacing about, cat-like along the top of the giant letter 'A' in WAYNE. "Well, since we're getting so chummy, let's go over the past for old time's sake. Let's see…There was Robin, all smart and disciplined and obsessive, who basically kicked your ass and destroyed your old headquarters despite holding his friends for ransom and coming this close." X indicated about a centimeter. "From actually killing bird-boy. Yeah, I know all about it. You're not the only one who does research on the enemy, thanks."

"No, no, by all means go on, X. It's fascinating to hear how a young man of such…_remarkable_ upbringing blossomed into the sleuth you claim to be now. Please, entertain me."

X could feel the tremor in his right hand like a rumbling quake and clenched it shut, fighting a cocktail of emotions as they boiled up in the proverbial shot-glass of his head. For a moment Red X felt as if he'd downed a couple of said shot-glasses as his brain spun with paranoia, confusion, anger, frustration, fear and a mess of other sub-route sentiments. He crouched down again at the edge of the giant letter and began tapping his finger in an anxious/paranoid kind of fashion.

What did that mean? He speculated a moment on the possible innuendos in those words. So he'd found his name. Big deal. One of the many names he claimed, one of billions of aliases… just so happened that this one happened to be the really thing.

Lucky guess?

A small part of him laughed and choked on an oversized chunk of 'not-on-your-life' and he dropped all fantasies of that and continued on his original tangent, ticking off mental fingers as he did.

"Don't interrupt teacher while he's talking," he leered. "Ahem…For pupil number two I recall a dirty little girl with platinum blonde hair, a drifter attitude and out of control earthy telekinetics. I guess you learned from your mistake with Robin and decided blackmail wouldn't work so you went all father-figure on her and turned her traitor. Real slick, slimy even you clever son of a bitch."

A small buzz of static, but no reply to that one. X went on.

"You may think you're in control here, Slade but I have news for you," Red X hissed into the communicator. "I don't care if you know who my grandma's second cousin is. I'm not doing _shit_ for you!"

There came, yet again, that chuckle and suddenly the image screen flickered to life and Slade's creepy Halloween hue mask materialized in the tiny monitor. "I thought you'd play that way, Bannon. But I also know you hate playing the hero…or the villain."

_Wouldn't want to take the job from you; you're doing so **well**,_ X thought scathingly.

Slade, oblivious to the burglar's thoughts, continued. "I'd like to test your morals, X. So I'll be brief."

The criminal gestured to something behind him and the camera panned left and refocused on a blurry figure outlined in a hazy green light. The moment it returned to normal an unfamiliar teenage face appeared in the center of the screen. Dark skinned, and good-looking with glossy-black hair that looked damp through the communicator. He seemed to be unconscious, but then he stirred slightly and colorless black eyes fluttering open before the camera zoomed out.

Slade's upper body filled the screen again and he held up five fingers.

"Five hours, X. Decide how you wish to play this round, I don't care, frankly. If you don't find this young man in five hours, I will use him to decimate this city."

X blinked, arching a brow so the featureless eyes of his mask visually screamed 'neh?' "Erm…hate to be a spoil-sport and all…but I don't play hero. You said so yourself. Besides," X pointed to the left corner of the screen, indicating Slade's off-camera hostage. "How's pretty-boy gonna help you decimate anything but the cover of 'Teen Talk' magazine?"

Slade folded his arms behind his back, military style and narrowed his nasty black eyes at the screen. "He's quite remarkable and if… utilized correctly, even deadly. But that's not half as interesting as his value to the peace of this metropolis and all coastal cities. Wars are fought over a single life, Bannon. Remember that."

He hung up.

X glared out across the glittering winter wonderland, all bedecked with the promise of Christmas morning with the sunrise. He had to figure out which life meant more to him in five hours. His own or that of a stranger. At first the answer came in the form of a resounding 'DU-UH!' but the longer he contemplated it, the longer he kept thinking, the less and less sure he became. Drumming a finger against the cool yellow casing of the communicator, he gnawed his lip.

That guy…the one with black hair and eyes: he'd been wearing a wetsuit or something streamlined for water. He'd looked awful wet and Slade seemed to put more spin on his social standing than his powers. So that made him…the son of someone important? Maybe, file that away for later. Wars are fought over a single life? War? So the son of a foreign ambassador or royalty? Perhaps, shuffle that back into the mental storage cabinet to review. Now, Slade mentioned coastal like Jump. So coastal…what country would focus their assault on only coastal metropolis?

X suddenly marveled at the irony of the situation: His sneaky, thieving mind, the one that couldn't walk into a mall outlet without instantaneously casing the place and seeking all the angles, looking for all the pros and cons, angles and variables of a _kidnapping_. Law stuff. Justice stuff. Hero stuff. If not for the face mask he would have rumpled his hair in frustration.

Okay, back to it…who attacks cities like Jump? Who would have the military advantage from the ocean when America is the most powerful force on land, air and sea?

Sea…

Sea?

Sea!

HOLY SHIT! THE SEA!

X nearly tipped off the side of the WAYNE building, shock riveting the burglar's limbs into rigid position. Duh! Since the creation of the Justice League the most common source of national tension hadn't taken place between the nations of different continents or even interplanetary dispute. Battles came and went but a new fear of a different sort had breached its ugly head from the dark places of the sea. Wars between the landmasses. Ha! Did the heroes of the world ever wish! If only it could stay that simple.

The tensions now…rose from the waters and the reclusive, suspicious populace that dwelled beneath the waves.

"He's going to piss of Triton…" X laughed in disbelief. "He's gonna start a coastal war between Atlantis and Jump City. That's all it's gonna take. Those water war-mongers are just looking for a reason, dammit. One Atlantian death means hundreds of citizen casualty."

The thief lifted his head toward the horizon, staring at the faintest blush of light daring to paint itself through the atmosphere. He massaged his forehead, a headache welling up behind his eyes and his thoughts retreated back to a time when life remained as simple as stealing from people and complex as the next security system. Frankly life went much more smoothly for him when assholes didn't know his name and didn't expect him to choose between shining heroism and hard-core crime.

"I'm not a hero…" he hissed, clenching his fingers tightly around the Titan communicator. "And I'm not another Slade. I don't _do_ crime-fighting and I don't _do_ valiant." X paused, mulling over his options. After a moment, he made his choice and began to dial something on the communicator.

"But I know someone who will."

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note: **Okay, small note here. I had Slade use a small electronic HIVE device to hypnotize Aqualad even though Brother Blood actually doesn't use electronics he just glares at you, does the weird glowing thing and you're a zombie. I improvised. Anyone have suggestions or critiques please leave them in the review box.


	7. Thieves and Thugs

**Thieves and Thugs**

_I'd like to ask you something honestly, thief to thief._ – _Red X_

t-h-i-e-f-

_Ring!_

The gentle, warbling cry of an unanswered telephone drifted through the empty pent-house apartment. The noise, wandering across undisturbed, black jade figurines of black cats set meticulously about a stylishly furnished glass-wall view of the city. Beyond the crystal panes the gritty black skyscrapers and almost cathedral-like structures of a stone monument to the power and prestige of mankind. The glitter of glass, and brick spliced together in a broken horizon of stabbing stone and towers, reaching concrete arms to the ever distant sky.

Below, this lovely and exotic home laid the busy city streets, a buzz with Christmas traffic through the digital read out in the stainless steel kitchen said 3:00 AM, a God forsaken hour to anyone of typical nighttime habits and certainly an irritation to who ever lived in this impressive living area. Surely. The minutes ticked by even as the bright green numbers lit up the vacant cooking area with a faint mossy cast, glittering off a myriad of silver saucers and fancy dishes all laid out in neat rows across the kitchen tile.

_Ring!_

At the second ring, a small black orb of fur so dark as to be faintly bluish in color unfurled from the arm of the soft, velveteen sofa. Long, triangular ears pricked forward. The ring sounded yet again and the ears twitched back in annoyance. A long, sleek tail lashed grumpily at the errant noise disturbing the feline's relaxation, ignoring several of its fellows, all of whom adhered to nature's nocturnal call and chased each other through the clean, empty halls.

The black cat, having had enough of this, stretched it's forelegs and yawned, baring neat ivory fangs and going long and rigid for a moment. Then, relaxing, the cat bounded down from the chair and padded silently down the nearest hallway. On its way, the animal past several intricately etched mosaics of Egyptian felines receiving worship on a throne, cats slinking and intertwining through the woodwork and every other picture hung and painted across the darkly tinted walls.

The cat reached the end of the hall and wormed through the crack in the bedroom door, gliding into an elaborate room of ebony selves, stacked with rare and priceless gems, jewels, artifacts and sentimental treasures. Our striking four-pawed protagonist trotted, tail flagging, across the smooth cherry-wood flooring and paused at the foot of an elegant, satin and silk embroidered mattress. Heavy, tassel sewn cover elegant and expensive to the trained eye and a source of endless amusement for tassel-fixated felines. There, standing at the end of the bed, the cat mewed demandingly and leapt up and pouncing on the bare feet of the ebon-haired young woman lying in the bed.

"Ow! Shi-shi!" cried the slender, female victim.

She frowned, full red lips pulling in an unhappy expression as her brilliant green eyes softened at the sight of her favorite feline. Her high, well sculpted cheekbones, developed twin dimples and her pale complexion glowed in the dim lamp-light. Smiling she reached out a slim arm, inviting the handsome animal to enjoy her touch. The ever conceited cat sniffed meticulously at her fingers at first, pretending he didn't care either way. However, his owner knew what he liked and gently stroked the animal behind the ears, long nails petting away the lovely creature's former pride.

The cat purred happily and arched its back against her arm, slinking about her waist and kneading the bed sheets with needle-like claws. Several ruby pendants, all emblazoned with the symbol for an ancient cat goddess, jangled against one another, shifting across her bedspread even as she picked her pet off her comforter and draped him over her slim shoulders.

"Now," she purred, "what's all the commotion then? Important call?"

The girl delicately reached over her pillows and silken poufs, plucking her smooth black phone from its cradle, pressing a button and replacing it quickly. The light bleeped on over the label: speaker phone and she sighed in ecstasy, rolling across her bed of coins, silk and feline treasures. _Ahh…Merry Christmas to me,_ she thought.

"Hello? Late night caller must be important. Talk to me, sweetie."

"Hey Cat," chuckled a low and humorous male voice, husky and distorted through the speaker. The woman's lips broke into a wide, warming smile at the familiar sarcastic tones. _Hmm…another of my favorites. Merry Christmas indeed._

"My neko-chan," she laughed musically, knowing the derogatory nickname would irk him. "I remember a skinny, little brat with a penchant for stealing from those who should not be stolen from. Now is that just my womanly intuition or do I sense that you've 'earned' a bit more than your payroll is due?"

"My payroll has nothing to do with it…" She could fell his quirky grin. "Well…maybe a little. You read about the recent crime wave in the coast?"

"Hmmm," she purred, appreciatively. Pawing a couple coins aside and sprawling comfortably on her belly and staring through the parted curtains out upon the city. The moon shone full through the dingy clouds of smog, shining bright in her emerald orbs. "I heard there was a new face on the fast track, but I never imagined you'd be one of them. My little neko-chan grew up while I wasn't looking."

A pause and an invisible tension drifted over the line.

She could feel his uncertainty like heavy breath against her ears, alerting her to his emotional status and sending up a frantic red flag. She sat up, concerned for her former charge. Despite all his strange and often infuriating habits and traits during her time with him, only a couple years back, she still felt a sisterly attachment to the young man on her line, mutual or not. She knew him to possess a rare thieving mind she admired in one so young and a sly cunning to match her own.

She'd taken a shine to him

Curiosity rose inside her and she placed Shi-Shi on the floor; something had shaken her fiercest kitten and she demanded to know what.

"I…need a favor…" he admitted. He stopped short, inviting her to open the topic, obviously looking to discuss something, but giving her the option of hanging up immediately. 'The mission, should you choose to accept…' The dark-haired woman could hear his breathing through the phone; knowing from the rhythm of his breath that he was distressed maybe even hurt.

"Ban-chan," she teased, letting the innocent pet-name fall from her lips like a gentle mantra. "Tell me what's happened."

A breathe. "I can't tell you the details or how I know, but I need you advice. For old times sake?"

She smiled. "Alight. What'cha need t' know?" she inquired playfully, fondling her precious feline possessions. She liked nothing more than to play these cat and mouse games, chasing her protégé's real meaning, true intentions and situation through a mere telephone. Asking advice didn't strike her as a common Ban-chan practice. If he actually needed to call her up after all these years just to ask advice…

The green-eyed thief smirked into her pillows. "I think you're calling to cash in on a solid 'you owe me'. Am I wrong?"

"No," he confessed, unabashed. He sounded confident and laid-back as he always did, optimistic and weird yet…tired somehow. "I guess I will cash in, but I'd like to ask you something honestly, thief to thief."

"I won't even comment upon the irony in that sentence," she mused, earning a low 'tch' from her unseen companion and she could feel him smiling his crooked grin.

"Cat…" he said suddenly, gaining her attention. "I'm…getting offered a job…by a guy I can't refuse."

"Can't refuse?" she echoed. "You? That's something new."

"Oh no. Not to say I didn't try. He just beat the living daylights out of me _and_ my refusal," he said matter-factly.

She frowned at this, concerned but not overly. She knew her former charge could more than handle himself but she didn't enjoy hearing her boy was getting physically battered over a job. She knew her pupil, intelligent as he was, would judge for himself whether or not the consequences of his activities were worth the price.

"You know I don't approve, However, you're a big boy in a big world so I'll let you work," she drawled, knowing what he wanted to hear and telling him just that. Babying and fretting like a hen over her chick would do little. Her indifferent feline mentalities didn't allow for it. Her kitten would have to grow into a tom-cat quickly, no matter how many rabid strays he encountered.

She reached back and plucked a lone photograph from the pin-ups tacked into the expensive woodwork of her headboard and examined the figures in the picture.

She of course, was standing in what looked like a high-end tech-lab, blowing a butterfly-kiss and sticking her hip out like a punk rocker with attitude to match. Beside her, dressed in a too big work-out shirt and a mechanic's jumpsuit rolled down about his waist, stood a slender looking kid with wiry arms braced against the hood of a tricked out, state of the art, vehicle – compliments of the family company. His dirty auburn hair so discolored she remembered with all the heavy machinery he worked with he might have still retained car oil in his hair. His huge, cat-like eyes still glinted mischievously from his strong roughish features.

Thumbing the photo she crawled on her elbows back toward the speaker phone. "Listen Ban. You're thief and an independent. I personally can't see you working as a hired underling for anybody. I don't want you getting yourself killed but I don't think you'd do well under supervision." She chuckled. "You're like a toddler after the candy… 'cept your IQ's a bit higher than that."

He didn't answer because she suspected he had not words to properly illustrate to his situation.

Shi-Shi leapt up on the bed and mewled piteously, eyes riveted upon the phone, purring happily at the sound of his only other favorite living creature, himself aside. Selfish little feline. Took after her pupil in every way imaginable, shame he'd left in such a hurry. Shi-Shi would have loved to accompany him on his illicit road of thievery.

"Hello, Shi-Shi," said the phone, amused.

"Dumb cat," she said playfully, stroking the animal. Her green eyes flickered back to the moon hanging low outside, watching as small, icy flakes began to drift and danced in downward spirals from the clouds above. "So how are you going to beat him? If you agree to work for him, something tells me you'll never get out of the commitment."

An ugly pause and for a moment she imagined he'd already agreed to it, then he found his voice again. "We'll see. I think I've got a plan but I'll need you to talk to someone anonymously. I can beat him at his game, but right now I'm short handed and he's holding a trump card I can't get around."

"What's that?"

"Hostage," he replied, sounding downright agitated.

She chuckled. "No I mean the game he's playing."

"Oh…trickery," he replied dismissively. "Wish me luck?"

"Only for you, Red."

"Thanks Selina…This is my last favor."

-t-h-i-e-f-

It grew quiet, hauntingly so for a room occupied by teenagers on Christmas morning. Though the sun had not yet broken the horizon, two of the Teen Titans stood somberly around the main communication screen. The Christmas lights blinked and sparkled invitingly, bright strings of electric joy flashing seductively, but invisibly. Neither of the Titans wanted anything to do with presents as of then.

Aqualad had just contacted them.

"He's been lying to you guys from the start," the aquatic teen informed them without a trace of doubt in his voice. His expression even through the computer screen appeared oddly pale, but sincere. He said his communication was reaching them from one of his many underwater networks of caves and tunnels. The reflection of water waves across the walls and his face seemed legitimate.

"So," Raven murmured, breaking the silence. "He never did run into Slade. It was all a ruse?"

"Sorry, Raven," Aqualad said apologetically, his eyes softening at her disgusted tones. "Bumblebee and I had a run in with a couple HIVE students. Apparently, X busted into the academy last night, stole their latest project and tried to make a run for it. It so happened, that Jinx and a couple seniors bumped into him on the way out and gave him a work over."

The two Titans, upon hearing this, sighed in resignation. Raven, admitting to herself that she'd _once again_ jumped to conclusions and unwittingly aided a creature not worthy of breath, much less her gifts of healing. Robin, however, seemed to take it far harder than either she or their informant Aqualad. After all, while Raven had merely made herself look like a two-year old enticed by candy, Robin took Red X as a far more personal affront and the very idea that his counter-part had used Slade (another little shoulder chip for him) to get him riled up, made the deception more personal.

Robin clenched his fist angrily against the top of the computer console, lips tight with anger. "He just used Slade as a way to get our attention," he hissed, voice strained with barely contained fury. "Heh. He actually had me going to. I was ready to cut a deal with him."

Raven sighed and massaged her forehead. "Well, at least you didn't _act_ on your suspicions. _I, _on the other hand, feel like an idiot. I went tracked him down in the middle of the night just so I could hand him a free check-up." Her face grew dark whether from black emotion or her own powers affecting the atmosphere about her impossible to tell. "But he'll need more than a checkup next time we meet…"

Aqualad made a face in the screen, obviously apologetic once more, despite having done nothing wrong. "I'm sorry I should have contacted you guys right away, but Bumblebee wanted to check and make sure X had no other ties with the HIVE before we worried you about it. Didn't know you all had such a history with him."

"Yeah," Robin muttered cryptically.

Raven watched their team leader with concern, but knew no words would smooth his ruffled pride as of now. The boy had already turned to his computer and began running the security and Titan Alert protocols that linked the tower to most of the city mainframe. _Probably hoping X'll show his ugly face_, Raven thought._ He'd better watch it. His obsessively paranoid tendencies are showing._ Instead of questioning her fearless leader's methods, she turned to Aqualad and nodded her thanks.

"He really had us worried over nothing," she said sincerely. "Thanks for clearing it all up for us, Aqualad."

The handsome Atlantian shrugged modestly. "Bumblebee did most of the work. I just thought it would be good to tell you guys."

"Yeah," Raven said, fighting not to let her unruly emotions get the better of her. "Speaking of Bumblebee, didn't she tell us she had something terribly important to talk to us about? Something about Steel City and the crime rates there. I think she's looking to form her own team or something. You heard anything about it? I figured if she told anyone, she'd tell you."

The boy looked momentarily startled by such a thought, however quickly recovered.

"Not that I know of. But then again she _has_ been acting more up-beat lately. She might have something up her sleeve, but she'll probably spring it on me last minute as usual."

Raven dared to quirk a smile. "Yeah, well. Thanks a lot Aqualad and Merry Christmas."

"Yes. You too," he said, giving her a smile to thaw snow covered ice-cubes. "I'd better get back to work or I'll get a severe reprimand from my superiors. I'll contact you later."

The screen blanked out.

Robin had already sat down and fallen into an unhealthy position, only a couple inches away from the console in front of him. Police files and recent 911 calls marched down a file to the right side of the screen while images from all over the peaceful holiday held city. Raven glided up to watch, face impassive. Robin didn't bother to look up, knowing Raven wouldn't take offense to his silence like the other Titans might. She and he remained wordless for a couple silent morning minutes as snow cascaded outside their darkened window.

"You know…" Raven drawled, trailing off.

Robin looked up from his program to blink at her.

She smiled thinly.

"It would be easier to track X…if you knew what his name was."

Then, while Robin could only gape in shock, she reached over his shoulder and delicately pulled up the computer imagery file she'd made using the residual DNA the burglar's bloody knuckles had left on her fingers. Robin stared speechlessly at the digital strand of genetic identity spinning on the computer screen in front of him before snapping his gaze back on Raven.

"Raven, if I run this through the database…" he said, almost breathless.

However, she'd already left his side and currently wrapped her energy about a parcel beneath the tree. Floating it over to her she settled down on the sofa with it neatly set on her lap. Smirking just slightly she plucked it out of the air and began slowly tugging the bow open.

"Early Christmas present from me you," she said, unwrapping the package and casually reading the little card with the words 'To: Raven From: Robin' scribbled across the front. "Ooh…" She held up a thick, leather bound volume entitled _The Alabaster Verse_. "I've wanted this book for a while now. Thank you Robin."

Then the two Titans enjoyed the quiet of each other's company and the _thoughtfulness_ of their gifts. Outside snow fell silently and a blush of palest purple crept across the horizon.

-t-h-i-e-f-

Cinnamon…

His room smelled like cinnamon. It always had and the thief wouldn't sleep at night without the familiar scent. He'd tried before and found he could not have a dreamless rest without the feel of well-worn pillows and the fragrance of spice lingering over the room. He remembered spilling the bottle of seasoning while sick one winter, munching on sugar and cinnamon sprinkled toast. He'd dropped the entire container on his bed while laughing at his favorite television show. Nice normal, happy times.

He pressed his face against the time-worn pillowcase and inhaled deeply, almost able to taste the sugared bread and long ago cheerful memories. Cinnamon…

X rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, his entire body going limp in euphoria of finally earning to right to just lie still and not move for a while. The moment felt like paradise. Feeling weightless and temporarily at peace with his existence in this life, the larcenist propped his head on his arm and curled up in the center of his too-large bed, taking comfort in the sensation of rumpled sheets, blankets and pillows all around him.

_You know what you have to do,_ part of him remarked drolly in the back of his mind.

X groaned and ignored the voice, praying for just a couple more minutes, just a little while longer without the stomach heaving task lain before him. He lifted his arm and slowly removed his gloves, staring at the pale, naked skin that he so meticulously hid from the prying eyes of the rational world. The windows, draped in misty black curtains and screened by oriental rice paper, would not expose him and for just a little while he wanted to pretend that he didn't have to save the world.

…well maybe not the world. If it were that big, he could just slough it off on the Justice League then couldn't he?

The burglar pushed himself off the comforter, the dark smoothness of the sheets sensual and real against his fingers. For a lucid moment he wondered if he'd ever been anything but X. Anything but skull mask and the thief in the darkness that so alliterated like a reoccurring dream throughout his world and the rush that defined his existence. Could he remember day when he'd felt like he could live in the daylight and walk the streets of Gotham or Jump without the sensation of exposure?

The thief crossed his apartment studio and slipped into the bathroom, leaving the lights dim and turning the shower on. Steam gushed form the overhead tube and clouds of mist instantly billowed up around the floor and filled the tiny room. Leaning heavily against the lip of his sink, the thief looked up into his mirror, seeing only a blurry glaze of misty glass.

Reaching up to cover his face, the young man spread his artisan fingers across the skeletal features of his mask and gingerly took the concealing head-piece in his hand. Simultaneously pressing corresponding pressure points beneath the rim of the mask, several electronic clasps clicked apart, unlocking his hidden identity.

Carefully, almost reverently after all this time of hiding, X removed the mask and placed it on the bathroom counter. The feeling of hot, moist air on his cheeks and forehead, moved him to run a hand through his tangle of unruly hair, raking it from his face and reaching down to unclasp his belt and let it slide to the floor as he stripped the upper half of his disguise from his upper body, revealing a disciplined and well toned body of one who pushes himself to his limits often.

The thief, having not shower in days and smelling really funky as of a couple days ago, quickly tossed off his clothing and stepped under the hot downpour of steam, letting the heat wash down his shoulders, hot at first before his skin adjusted to the extra heat. Feeling a thousand times better than before, Red X - or rather, his alter ego, Bannon – scrubbed weeks of grim off his body, washing and rising several times before choosing to simply sit in the bottom of the shower and let the gentle droplets of water wash down his soap-scented body. (Hey! Cucumber melon!)

Somehow, the water running in rivets down the contours of his body seemed to heal whatever paralysis held him captive. If water could make weak men strong, then he dared to say he could just about take on Slade if the masked megalomaniac popped through the door for a brawl.

Wait…no. He would take on Slade…once properly dressed. No one feels invincible while clothing deprived.

"If only Selina could see me now," he drawled to himself, twisting the water off and feeling around outside the shower door for a dry towel. "Miss Kyle would probably have a fit, if she knew how deep a hole I've dug myself into."

Managing to snag a towel, the young thief dried himself quickly, and stalked about his apartment in search of boxers. Upon finding a pair he considered his options, the first and more appealing choice consisted of shirking his inevitable doomsday mission and the only possible salvation of this miserable city, but getting a heck of a lot more me-time out of it. The second option required him to repair his suit, put it back on and skip merrily out the door to find Slade and play the jolly hero.

Frankly he'd love to go with door number one, but it had been firmly bolted shut by his own principles and left him with all the unpleasantness of door number two.

Sighing, the larcenist threw a too-big button-up across his damp shoulders and grabbed up his damaged suit. He crossed the room, jumping his oh-so-inviting sofa and striding into his work-room, the word 'room' getting used very loosely here since the walls consisted of a few random rice-paper screens round a work table and large tool-kit. Scattered about the table-top like crumbs lay stray pieces of machinery and tools, all haloing a dissected zynothium belt that lay exposed on the desk.

He noticed that one of his proto-types had gone missing. Damn Slade! Didn't he know not to take things that weren't his? It had taken him months to find the parts and build a proper zynothium core, but find them he had build _several,_ he had.

No matter, he still had at least one.

He draped the suit across the table top and reached for a couple, slim and precise looking tools made for delicate nano-tech repairs. Swiveling around on his favorite stool, he bent over a damaged area with a large suspended microscope. Sparks almost to minute to see began flying about his fingers and not twenty minutes later, he had repaired all the major damage Slade inflected upon both him and his suit. He figured a quick patch job would just have to do for now. The thief shook out the outfit but didn't immediately put it on.

He still needed a moment to think through his ever less enticing plan to save Jump City. Oh joy.

Suddenly realizing how hungrily his stomach growled the young thief tossed the suit aside. He wandered into the kitchen, raided the fridge, sporked the hell out of a microwave dinner and popped it in said kitchen appliance. While his high-calorie dinner nuked itself edible, he ventured back to his room and made yet another call his cell phone, not trusting Slade to keep his paws off his landline. He'd checked everything for bugs, even scanned for electrical devises and got nil, but that didn't make it any better. Just knowing Slade had accosted his only sanctuary made him edgy and anxious.

The residual sensory images left by Slade's fists remained in his brain like a deeply rooted weed, choking out all his blossoming schemes for pulling off his greatest heist ever: stealing from Slade. The ingrained fear threatened to break him.

X glanced back toward his empty, lonely looking suit, hanging over the sides of the work table like a sad kind of pet. The empty skull mask upon the far corner of the desk seemed to gaze invitingly up at him. He frowned, feeling as accosted as his apartment and went to rescue his dinner – umm, breakfast – from the microwave. He returned to his work table and sat in his stool, peering down at his handiwork while chewing sweet-and-sour pork.

_You know what you have to do, Red X._

"Of course I do," he muttered, speaking around a face full of food. He swallowed and tossed the empty bowl away in the bin at the foot of the desk. "Knowing you have to do a shitty job and actually getting up the nerve to go do it are two very different things."

_I have to. This is what I **must** do, as insisted by the strange voice in my head_.

X sighed and vouched to just let his thoughts run like background noise in his buzzing brain. The young man stretched several times, bringing his arms up and stretching taunt until every line of muscle was clearly defined all down his abdomen and chest. Bending over, he arched his back into a momentary bow before pulling his legs up and over in a slow, but limber handstand. He stared at the flooring beneath his palms before flipping smoothly back to his feet. He sighed and inhaled deeply, more completely than before and then released the breath.

_It's complicated…for me at least._

Red X breathed sharply, his left wrist cutting through the air in deft, slicing motions to be immediately shadowed by his right. A dull shadow flickered and mimicked his movements across the wall, painted oriental artworks bearing witness to his warm ups. Running through a couple fluid hand drills, the boy brought his fists up in a defensive stance and practiced his balance. Planting his right foot, he extended his leg almost vertically and spun around in a deadly pirouette. Then slowly, he brought it around in a slow-motion round-house kick. He did this several times as the encroaching shadows of his room sought to swallow his silhouette.

_There is bad…and there is worse. Personally I like to think I'm somewhere in between._

Muscles, warm and loose, the thief grabbed up his belt and body suit and dug around for his tattered old cape. Finding it crumpled beneath a pile of newspaper clippings, he shook it out and examined the stylishly frayed fringes. It did little for combat maneuverability, but it insulated and really completed the whole mystique of his disguise. Feeling somewhat giddy – the anticipation of his new and dangerous heist making him jittery and hyper – the thief Every motion he made, slipping his arms through the sleeves, smoothing his outfit and belting on the zynothium.

_Those who steal…and those who steal lives…_

Red X pulled the suit over his head, adjusting the familiar weight of the fabric and circuits to align with every key vital point and trigger. As he did, he happened to chance his reflection in the shattered shards of the mirror he'd once hung as a good-luck charm over his workbench. The idea being that all ill-luck toward him would be bounced back like a light of a mirror. Looking at his broken features only made his goal more resolute. He reached for his gloves.

_And the line between them is never clear, as is the way with crime these days._

His hands slid up his forearms, carefully pulling his gloves up to the elbow, the fashionably ripped and jagged looking arm guards comfortable and weightless against his skin. Smoothing the cloth with the grace of long practice, X furled and unfurled his hands. He cocked his head, cracking his neck with a quick twist of the head and shook out his hands. X reached for his mask.

_It's supposed to be complicated._

He smoothed his hair from his face before slipping the familiar skull face over his real features. Like a safety blanket to a child, his mask gave him a sense of comfort and ability to handle whatever should come.

_But tonight is different…_

Red X threw open his skylight and glanced momentarily back into his strangely furnish apartment. All the familiar, comfortable décor stared bleakly up at him from the floor, all safe, all sure and solidly real in his home. They seemed like possessions belonging to another person and for a moment, X contemplated to whom they'd belonged before he'd taken them, but no…

This was his apartment and he'd decorate however the hell he liked, stolen paintings or no he'd selected every work, every sofa, cushion and rug. He'd taken every thread he seen fit to steal and in his own crooked logic, that defined him in a way. Red X…the thief. Not a murderer, not the apprentice and never an underling to anyone. (Selina didn't count. He'd been twelve.) He closed the skylight behind him and the crystalline frost about the pane reflected his skeletal expression.

X felt himself grin, a grim and resigned kind of acceptance and as he gazed at his own features in the glass he mused on how something as simple as a shower could prove so cleansing. The window latched shut from the inside and to roof, moments later, showed no trace of the boy who'd crouched there only moments before. The snow danced across the roof tops and in the silence, the first stirring noise of the stirring city could be heard.

_In fact, tonight nothing's ever been simpler._

-t-h-i-e-f-

The waters around his waist shifted and undulated around him, lapping at his middle like a dark, freezing animal. He flicked the communicator open. Face expressionless, he brought the devise to eye-level and spoke. "It's done."

"Excellent," a sultry, male voice murmured through the airways. The young man holding the radio didn't seem bothered by the evil in his voice however, merely listening with rapt attention. His body shivered uncontrollably his skin raw and numb due to the freezing air and sub-zero waters around him. "They believed you I'm certain. You have exceptional acting skills young Atlantian."

"Thank you, master," he replied, sounding more like a trooper speaking with an officer than anything else. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"No. I believe that's all I'll require from you," the older voice replied, amused it seemed. "Tell me though. How is my old friend, Blood treating you at the academy?"

"Fine," he replied tonelessly. "Headmaster had me taking a couple endurance tests. He postponed them so I could call the Titans for you. Am I free to return to my class?"

"Yes. Tell Blood you're all his. I've no further need of you."

Aqualad nodded and shook a thick rope of inky hair from his face. "Thank you, master. I'll tell him," he said and closed the communicator. The girl standing on the dry platform above him held out an expectant hand and the boy handed the radio to her. Her soft pink hair looked wet from the spray inside the chamber and her jester-like gown of black and striped stockings dark with water.

She smiled mischievously down at him from the platform and caught his wrist. Beaming at the good-looking teen, she kissed the centre of his palm. "It's for good luck," she whispered secretively, relinquishing her hold on his hand. "I'd like you to be one of us. Don't fail."

Jinx stepped back from the lip of the tank, still smiling and holding the radio to her breast as he dove back underwater and left her behind. He knifed through the chill liquid and into the darker waters of the main tank below. He looked up, to see the entry way he'd come through seal closed, a heavy metal seal sliding over the exit and looked toward the front of the glass confinement.

Aqualad saw Jinx take her place beside the control panel outside. The Headmaster stood just outside, watching and Aqualad nodded to Jinx, signaling 'go'. She looked away and began turning dials and entering codes via the computer console at their finger tips. Instantly the pressure inside the tank began to increase, pressing in against Aqualad's skin like a heavy blanket, enveloping his whole body. The liquid against lips and tongue grew heavy as he fought to breathe the denser waters.

His youthful features grew tense as he struggled with fatigue to make his body fight the crushing pressures. His ebon hair flattened against his head as his chest contracted and his arms and legs folded tightly against his body. The pressure still grew, slowly crushing the Atlantian with the force. His wearied body, though young and well trained, simply could not withstand the repeated strain of such weight on his frame.

_It's crushing me! _hethought frantically. _I can't stop it! I'm going to fail! I'm not going to make it, it's too much!_

In that moment, the control Slade held over him shattered, literally. The devise crumpled like a soda can and the neural synapses, once repress, fired to life and suddenly as his personality returned, Aqualad realized his test would never have an ending grade. His 'class' didn't teach him anything, nor would his fellow 'students' help him though he could see many of them watching through the thick pressure-proof glass before him. He wasn't being tested.

He was being executed.

Gasping in pain, but unable to even draw proper breathe for gasp, the teenager struggled uselessly in the high water density. He shuddered violently, muscles shaking as his control over water held the killing pressures at bay. He couldn't get his arms away from his body, his hands pinned against his shoulders by the water even as he fought to lift a hand. He felt hairline fractures run through his ribs and his back arched in pain before the pressure forced his body into a painful ball. He tried to cry, but he couldn't open his eyes

"Ahh, revenge is so satisfying," Brother Blood remarked, gazing at his captive through the thick glass wall.

The Atlantian's agonized expression filled him with elation as his body slowly broke under the merciless water. The teenager struggled, screaming silently in the watery shroud, as his punishment doled out. The Headmaster tapped a finger against the glass, examining a smear where the cleaning crew had missed some grime.

"Shame it's not that traitor Bumblebee," he said regretfully as Aqualad heaved a visible sob through clenched teeth. "Though, I suppose she'll be _crushed_ when she finds I've taken him." He chuckled to himself. "Jinx! Reduce pressure!"

"Yes, Headmaster," she said, quickly nullifying the pressure. The Atlantian instantly went limp, his body unfurling from his fetal curl of pain. He lost consciousness as his body, suddenly relieved of the terrible pressure, sank to the bottom of the tank, motionless. The water drained from the tank until only a thin puddle of water pooled around his injured body.

"Dying would be too kind." he said, voice sly with cruel anticipation. "Jinx. Take Mirage, Distortion, and Alias and get the Atlantian to tell us everything about what he and the traitor Bumblebee have discovered about my school."

"Yes, Headmaster," Jinx nodded, gesturing to the three said students.

They departed and Brother Blood smiled cruelly at the aquatic teenager. Aqualad, struggled to rise, his eyes fluttering weakly as his head pounded blood through his brain in a heavy rhythm. He felt someone enter the tank from above and another walk through a wall to his left, the air vibrating as they did. A hand touched his back and gently found its way to the back of his neck. Something stung his neck and a strange coolness spread beneath his skin.

"Distortion, Alias, hold his arms and keep him steady. You know what that stuff does to you," she commanded indisputably.

"Sure do," replied a low, male voice as strong hand held the Atlantian's arms on both sides and pulling him off the ground. He wanted to fight, but every muscle in his body ached and he could barely find the strength to keep breathing, much less struggle. He managed to force his body still and stop swaying so badly, but the boy at his left warn him to hold still or they'd just let him fall on his face.

He probably would too.

"You're in for a hellava time," giggled a strange girl voice from his right. She pulled him a bit closer and leaned in to whisper. "It's not so bad. Just try to think about something else."

Aqualad wondered what they were talking about, and what could possibly be worse than the nightmare he'd just endured, when the serum they'd injected finally took hold. He reacted violently to the chemicals and doubled up, puking. When he threw up everything in his belly his stomach contracted and he puked bile instead. Throat burning with the corrosive stomach acids and his entire body trembling from the violent reaction, he almost thanked the HIVE student who thoughtfully held his head and smoothed his hair out of his face when he puked the third time.

"Don't try to fight us," he heard Jinx say from behind him, voice soothing as she stroked his hair back, steadying him. "Headmaster won't have you killed if you cooperate. He might even let you study here so long as you don't try to fight."

He couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't speak anyway. He felt himself slipping away into unconsciousness and gratefully fell into the meaningless darkness, all the time wondering what he'd _done_ to warrant this torture.

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note: **Yes, I have way too much fun tormenting Aqualad, but guess what? I finally have some action planned for my next chapter! I promise. Terrible sorry for the delay but... my gosh! I had to think of a plot and I dare say it threw off my random chapter typing skills. Hope you enjoyed this chapter because I had a terrible time trying to come up with it. By the way, I own nothing. Not Teen Titans, not DC comics and not Selina Kyle.

PS: How many of you know who she is? Shame on you if you don't.


	8. Dangerous Deception

**Dangerous Deception**

_I'm **so** gonna die. – Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

"Whales?"

The speaker gaped openly. The smell of hot coffee grounds bubbling into a hot beverage drip filled the warm, heated room of Jump's local docking office. The weather outside was indeed frightful, icy winds hurling sheets of ice and snow off the frothing, bay waters and in a thick coating against the side of the tiny building. Inside the office, the dispatcher, a thin, balding fellow with a wife and kids expecting him home for Christmas, poured the steaming pot and handed a mug to the frosty looking sailor who'd staggered off his battered, near crippled vessel only minutes earlier.

The man, thoroughly wrapped warmly in a thick wool blanket and heavy jacket, still shivered and chattered as he took the hot cup. Nodding in gratitude, he drank, cradling the liquid heat and absorbing the heat greedily. His trimmed beard hung thick with ice chunks and salt crystals, crusty grime clinging around the corners of eyes and mouth as he slowly warmed again.

The bookish dispatcher folded his arms, rumpling his once cleanly pressed dress shirt and sitting down on the jacket it came with, having draped it over the back of his seat. He leaned back in his desk seat, shocked. "That's incredible! They're rare around here and shy to boot. I can't believe they almost capsized your boat."

"The damage's so bad, I'll probably have t' get the entire hull refit. It's awful," mourned the shaggy mariner, looking downright miserable. "I don't know what provoked th' damn things. They just went nuts. I've never seen anything like it in my life, I swear, I thought they were gonna dump me in the bay."

"Tch…'mazing," the bookkeeper marveled. "Hey, since its Christmas and all…you can dock the boat free, until you get that ship to a proper warehouse for repairs."

The mariner looked about ready to kiss the man. "T-thanks," he chattered, trying to smile despite his shivering. "It means a lot. Thanks."

The dispatcher smiled benevolently. "No trouble. You just get yourself home and relax."

The two men chatted a while longer, baffled at the behavior of the local marine life and discussing Christmas plans, trips, business and such. The sailor, a one Marcus O'Neil, said his good-byes to the middling and scholarly chap and after shaking hands, he departed for the walkway, heading home. The dispatcher sighed and returned to his office, counting the hours until his shifted ended and he could return to his family and comfort of his own home.

"Christmas," he muttered resentfully. The man sighed yet again and removed his glasses, tossing them aside and leaving them to rest on the stack of docking records piled on his desk. "They should just close the docks on Christmas, far too dangerous in the winter anyway." He sighed and cupped his chin, staring out the window as the skies lightened, morning struggling to come.

And then…

"Hey _there_ **_Mr_**. Peterson!"

"MY LORD IN HEAVEN!" screamed the poor booker, spinning in his swivel chair and upsetting all the docking records for the day, sending the charts, signatures and records flying in a mini paper blizzard. Sagged in his chair, he clutched at his thin chest, heart laboring furiously in his ribcage as sweat beaded across his polished forehead. He stared wide-eyed at his visitor, looking horrified, his dull brown eyes growing to dinner-plate proportions.

All the blood in his face retreated, stripping what little color he had from his face and leaving him ghost white. He squeaked, clutching the arms of his large well-worn seat in fear as the shadowy figure chuckled. Obscured in the gloom of the hallway where Peterson had failed to turn on unneeded lights, the unknown speaker watched the older man with dark amusement. Lithe, sinuously sure limbs carried the intruder from the wall he reclined against – how long he'd stood there undetected Peterson could only guess – and closed the distance between them in three long strides.

Red X planted a foot against the front of the man's chair and grinned, skull mask homicidally impish on his face.

"Merry Christmas old man," crowed the distorted tones of the terrifying criminal. "Letting the unfortunate have free docking? Gee, you must have something on your conscience. Drug trafficking perhaps? Lotsa off-the-record docking arrangements with the local crime lords? Anything to keep the wife and kids happy campers for Christmas, right?"

Mr. Peterson ground his teeth in rage, jaw-line muscles jumping, tendons standing clear of his pencil-ish neck. That delinquent! The miserable, little whelping bastard, so cocky and self-assured in his independence, what did he know about the workings of the underground? Why, a thief need only know who he sold his wares to and how much he gets paid. They didn't have to get deeply involved with his clientele. One exchange and they cut all ties from there.

A stupid, adolescent teenybopper of a bandit could and would never respect nor appreciate the delicate balance he'd found here. Pleasing the criminals and doing business with the legitimate citizens as a neutral means to the ends of all who came to him for his humble services.

"What do _you_ want?" hissed the middle aged bookkeeper, seething. "Shouldn't you be picking pockets somewhere?"

"Ouch! That one hurt," X cried in mock injury. "Ooh well, I'll get _over **it!**_"

On the word 'it' the burglar kicked out his foot. Braced against the chair, his powerful blow sent his cultured companion rocketing backwards on the wheels of his swivel chair, screeching all the way. The man's chair crashed into his desk, nearly upending the heavy piece of furniture and the thin, well-dressed secretary with it. Instead, the man slumped in his seat, momentarily stunned.

Meanwhile, X crossed the floor and bent down to snatch up on of the docking records, shaking it straight and examining it closely. Peterson, eyes slightly crossed, held out a shaking hand in protest. Despite all his after hour of illicit behavior the man still felt a strange sense of self-importance in keeping his job and bong it right. Letting citizens – even criminal ones – read the docking charts didn't sit right with him. He had his pride.

"H-hey! You can't read those…" he protested weakly.

"Oh, go fly a kite, Peterson," X articulated, waving a gloved hand in dismissal.

The man fumed, enraged, and promised himself that _his_ children would never grow to be so arrogant as this one. So help him, he'd find a way to teach this smug little street punk some real manners. Respect his elders the way young people should in the same way Brother Blood kept his students in check. Now _there_ was a man who knew his way around this new generation. If only…

Peterson sighed dreamily to himself, envisioning a world where he finally got the respect he deserved. Where brats like Red X didn't wield the power simply because they had more muscle, more youthful agility or thieving smarts. He fantasized briefly; imagining that in such a world Red X would drop on bended knee and beg to be part of his growing little enterprise…

Not ridiculing him and making a fool of him every other night!

X didn't give him a chance to finish that thought and held up the stolen paper. "Hey, old man, pay attention. It's important. Now, have you been ferrying around any kidnapping jobs lately and tell the truth, I'd hate to feel our relationship wasn't totally honest."

Peterson glared. "No."

"And I thought we had connection," the burglar sighed… and hurled three razor-sharp 'X' shuriken into the back of the man's chair. The blades needled the cushion around the book-keeper's head. The man's complexion turned corpse colored and he uttered an inarticulate babbling sound as X grabbed lapels of rumpled dress-shirt and shoved him back into his seat.

"Now tell me who your Christmas paycheck writer is you slime-ball! Who is it?" He yanked him forward and shoved him back again, head bouncing off the back of the seat. "Blood? That's moron, Mumbo? Dr. What-ziz face? Well? Don't hold on me, he's kidnapped someone important and that's not proper holiday spirit."

Holiday spirit…right…

"I can't! He'll kill me, you drooling, meat-headed idiot!" Peterson screamed at his tormenter, anger getting the better of him despite everything. "Of course, a stupid, self-sufficient little brat like you would never know anything about-,"

X whipped his hand up, a thin folded strip of crimson metal between slender fingers. He jerked his wrist, flipping the weapon open like a switchblade, revealing yet another razor-sharp crisscross of deadly alloy. Peterson broke into a sweat, abandoning further dialogue to squeak momentarily in terror. X had always made threatening innuendoes, but never actually gone as far as … well, actually _making_ the threat. The shuriken, the blade, his entire laid-back posture gone murderous, none of it held to X's usual demeanor. The young man's lean frame shook with barely suppressed rage, fury emanating from his body like heavy cologne.

Did he…actually have something to lose here?

"I know plenty about this _business_, you rat-bastard. Now tell me where Slade took his hostage or I swear I will _take off _an_ **ear**_. Talk!"

Mr. Peterson – years of criminal activity working for him – knew when to take a threat seriously.

"Slade? It wasn't Slade!" the dispatcher squealed, eyes locked on the glinting, pointy angles of his attacker's weapon. "I swear! He's not the one who asked for my services! Blood did! It was Brother Blood!"

X obviously didn't like this answer because in response he slammed the high-backed chair back into the desk with a vengeance. Peterson cowered before the fury of the hot-headed youth thief, baffled by the burglar's rage. What did a hostage matter to a larcenist and why was Red X going though so much grief, trouble and unnecessary roughness just to get information?

"Why would Blood want _your_ help?" X snarled.

He'd lost a lead of some sort and his frustration showed its fraying edges in his body language. The blade edge shimmered in the buzzing overhead lamp light, casting irregular and sinister shadows over the young man's skeletal features. For a horrible moment Peterson entertained thoughts of the Grim Reaper gone twenty-first century.

"The hostage!" he went on. "Does Blood have him now?"

"No! Wait, I don't know anything about that!" Peterson swore a flicker of hope waking in him, a chance to at least salvage one of his client's contracts with him. "Blood sent three of his students, a girl, pink hair, jester suit, large hairy fellow and an annoying little toddler with a metal backpack. She rented out one of our docking facilities in the fishing district, but I never saw any Atlantian!"

"I never _said_ he was an Atlantian!"

"…shit."

"Damn straight you, scum. Look old man, I have two freakin' hours to get this done, you know something about the Atlantian and if you hold me back, I _will_ hurt you."

The man didn't say anything for a long moment, simply hanging there in X's grip like a comatose, balding dummy. His watery eyes darted about, seeking an angle, a bluff, a scheme to get out this jam, but X's blade introduced itself gingerly to his Adam's Apple and the man's fragile principles of secrecy evaporated in a steamy, sweat-soaked haze of self-preservation.

"Okay, okay, you psychopathic little bastard!" roared the man, "They came back with a couple dolphins, okay? I heard Gizmo talk about 'bait for the fish-boy' and they left for the fishing warehouses. They must have kidnapped him then."

"And Slade?" Red X insisted.

"I don't know anything about Slade," spat Peterson.

A slight narrowing of the eyes and Peterson knew the thief – with good reason – didn't believe him. The man momentarily pondered exactly how he'd ever teach this delinquent some manners if he couldn't even think of a clever way to punish him for this indecency. His arrangement with Blood, forged under pretenses of secrecy and confidentiality, all went to hell if he leaked anything more about his transactions with Blood. This one kidnapping ploy was only the tip of a very, very, very large and nasty ice-burg and he didn't think Blood would appreciate it if his newest scheme fell into the lime-light too soon.

However, the burglar didn't seem interested. No, he wanted a connection to Slade, to the Atlantian boy – though a thief choosing to risk his life for the sake of collateral damage like a hostage seemed ridiculous to Peterson – and obviously a lead to the whereabouts of both.

But Peterson knew something X did not. Yesss…he could feel a plot coming on, one of his very own making, how exciting! Red X wanted Slade and the hostage and presumably the thief believed that the two came as a package deal: find one get the other free.

This, however, was not the case. Blood had the Atlantian now and Slade who'd collaborated with the man up until now…The light bulb flickered and clicked to life overhead, etching an evil kind of picture in the man's head. His villainous mind-set found the connection! The perfect plan to get X for all this pain and humiliation, to see the miserable little thief finally bite off more than he could chew and tangoing with a psychopath…

Peterson smiled inwardly, but outwardly huffed in anger.

"I heard them mention something said by their contact though, something about diamond mines and a 'skinny blonde girl' or something. Ring any bells? I hope not, because I dealt with the docking and the fishing boat. Nothing more."

X smiled beneath that bleached skull. "You sure about that, old man?"

"No, but I'm not telling _you_ anything else. I activated the silent alarm and the police will be here momentarily," Peterson gloated. The thief looked deliciously startled, eyes darting to the little red button hidden beneath the desk and back to his captive, angry. Though Red X held the advantage in the criminal world, hanging the threat of the anonymous tip-off over his head, he could do nothing with the flatfoots point blank. Roles still stood as follows: Red X – highly wanted thief. Mr. Charles Peterson – dock dispatcher and family man.

In the public eye, Peterson was whistle clean.

The rogue might have reacted more violently to the trickery if he'd really cared, but he knew what Peterson knew and the cops' reaction time would prove grossly inadequate to stop Red X if the thief decided to beat the brains out of his skull, but the fact stood that the man _had_ called. X paused in thought, probably considering whether or not to call his bluff and beat the living snot out of the skinny, balding crime trafficker.

"I'm taking your boat," the thief announced.

Snatching Peterson's keys off the desk he kicked said owner of the boat across the room, via: rolling desk-chair. The wheels whizzed across the planking, taking the bookkeeper with it at break-neck speed. Shrieking and cursing the young cat burglar all the way to the wall, Peterson's stream of oaths abruptly ended in a crash as he toppled into a bookshelf and sprawled on the uneven floor planks. He unearthed himself from the mountain of fallen paper and books, shaking a fist at the now empty room.

"You'd better not scratch it, you brat!"

-t-h-i-e-f-

Skinny blonde girl. Something about 'that one skinny blonde girl'. Diamond mines. Ring any bells? Well, to put it intelligently, appropriately and logically:

_Hell, yes!_

Red X gunned the throttle of the meager speedboat; engine roaring delightfully at the vessel rocketed across the choppy, ocean waters. The thief checked the speed gauge at a glance, decided he was probably going faster than the battered old thing had ever gone in its dull life and reasoned that thrashing this particular boat's ignition would not bother him at all.

Not like Mr. Charles Peterson ever used it for anything important.

X glanced skyward, noting the lighting of the skies and deduced he didn't have much time to make his move on Slade's hideout, which, he proudly gloated, he knew the location of. Heading east by water seemed like the most reasonable thing to do given his options…and just 'cause he really wanted to jack Peterson's ride. The scuzz-ball, twisted little sadist he was, allowed every kind of illicit and disgusting activity around his docks.

Not that X pretended to claim high morals, but some things really did disgust him and puffed-up power-hungry weaklings who organized human traffic and kidnappings did not sit well with the thief. But since everyone's gotta eat and the cowardly little slime didn't actually _partake_ in the activities, the dispatcher got off with only the occasional roughness whenever X needed a snitch…voluntary or not.

_Well_, X thought as he killed the engine, letting the boat glide soundlessly ashore and beaching with a gentle bump in the sands, _I got my lead and now that the easy part's outta the way I have to pull the single most dangerous stunt I've ever worked up the brass to attempt – big emphasis on attempt here – and somehow get out of this in relatively one piece. _

The thief leapt up the side of a steep embankment, hopping nimbly from rock to rock and scaling the sheer precipice overhanging the sandy stretch of beach below. The rock beneath his hands looked new and recently formed, as if by a magma spill less than a year previous.

"I'm _so_ gonna die," Red X muttered to himself.

Boosting himself over the lip of the cliff and studied his surroundings with a somber kind of resignation. From here he could make out a subtle yawning tunnel, the entry-way to the old mining excavations. The cat-burglar crouched at the edge of the high drop-off and looked up toward the still bright moon, wondering despite himself if his entire plan might go 'boom' before he even realized it could.

"I hope Selina did her job," the young man added under his breath and tapped the centre notch of his belt.

Zynothium energy hummed through the familiar weight of the device and a comfortable warmth spread instantly through the hidden circuits of the suit. He bounced on the balls of his feet, thinking momentarily, envisioning his next move and cracking of his knuckles individually, counting them silently as he did. Shaking a kink out of his right hand, the burglar tapped it a second time to activate the vibo-portation tech.

With a buzzing flutter, like flurry of dragon-fly wings, his figure shivered and vanished from sight.

-t-h-i-e-f-

_Words to describe Slade's hideout: Gritty, dirty, muddy, dank, depressing, smelly, dark, wet, creepy, weird, disturbing, soggy, cold, eerie – _**Boink**_! Ouch! Damn stalactite – err – stalagmite or … whatever they call the things that smack you in the head while you're wondering blindly in the dark. Grr…die stalagmite of doom! _**Smack! **_Ha! That'll teach you!_

Red X paused a moment and considered that he'd just slapped a rock formation and basically proved no intelligent life lived on planet earth. Not sure whether to feel more annoyed with himself or the stalacti-a-thingy, he shook out his numb fingers and used the offending spike of cavern stone as a kind of handhold. Using the very dim light as his guide, he moved around to boost himself over a difficult niche between two rocks. Once squeezed betwixt the stone, he climbed upward, spider-man style and pulled himself over the top of the rock face.

No. He decided that his annoyance made more sense when directed at the stalactite (stalagmite?). After all, was it not the rock that had brained him silly in the first place? Therefore all his resulting stupidity could be directly attributed to the concussion he'd just received from the rocks he currently navigated. Eat that Einstein.

_Boink!_

"Ow! Dammit!"

Red X, bruised and muddy as he'd become felt he'd done rather well considering. Upon entering the mining shafts the young thief had quickly discovered that whatever light had once made this place bright had long since shattered under the incredible heat of a near eruption. X didn't know the exact details of the blast, save what he'd derived from broken conversations he'd 'overheard' from the Titans.

A girl named Terra who'd once terrorized Jump City. X remembered watching her and Slade thousands of drones, like a malevolent marching band on parade, following the girl silently, unstoppable, through the deserted city streets. The thief had crouched in an adjacent building as the teenaged girl drifted by, standing like a soldier, chest out, arms back, atop a levitated chunk of concrete. Ripped out from beneath the Titans' feet no doubt. X recalled that by now the news of the Titan's demise had affectively brought the city to its knees.

Even as a breaker of the law, X could feel the oppressive shroud as it choked hope from the metropolis, smoothing life and bravery until none remained. The people cleared out and pretty soon, only people like X remained. Watching, silently, because people like X simply couldn't miss out on incredible things that ordinary people run screaming from.

He remembered watching her as she passed, so close he could have reached out tugged on a wisp of her long pale hair. He'd even considered it, if only to see the look of shock in her huge blue eyes as some dark weirdo in a skull mask yanked her hair. The hair of the single most powerful being in Jump City, thank you very much. The cat-burglar fancied that her shock would have given him ample time to make his get-away, but then again those drones could follow someone for miles on end and a virtual army of them chasing his ass through a deserted city didn't sound like jolly good time in his book.

She'd died here. X felt he could say that safely. She'd died in this mine as a result of Slade's influence over her.

"It was fun," he'd heard her mutter.

_It was fun_…

Red X shuddered and wondered what kind of person Slade could sculpt even the most gentle seeming of individuals into. Terra, from what the Titans had said that odd day he'd overhead them – the situation of this eavesdropping had proved incredibly uncomfortable for the thief, but informative nonetheless and certainly a tale for another time. Not right now – had been a very agreeable, independent kind of girl, one who's only occupation in life was living for herself and helping others along the way.

Not a killer. Not a traitor. Slade had made her that way, or at least brought out her worst and well-hidden flaws. Red didn't deny where that placed him. His personality was the single most haphazard, slapped together, stitched and patched piece of work he'd ever evaluated. Terra had been a kind and loving person, a normal girl with insecurities and love of pizza.

X was…not.

He was a criminal, almost of the same cloth as Slade. He didn't have his justice, his morals or his friends to keep him going. If Slade could turn Terra, a girl who'd nearly joined the Titans, how much easier would turning a neurotic, selfish, kleptomaniac in a jumped up battle suit be to a master manipulator such as Slade. X couldn't even deny that Slade had chosen well in his target. Red X didn't have people who cared about him enough to try to save him if he botched his endeavor. He knew that if he failed…

He wouldn't be Bannon anymore…he doubted he'd even be Red X when Slade finished with him.

"It's supposed to be complicated," X muttered, reminding himself.

He descended a long, empty tunnel of slick stone, sliding his hand along the cold granite, feeling the dampness of the winter chill. Nimble fingers felt out the rough lining of the cave wall. X held up his hand and could make out the vague outline just barely in the darkness. He reasoned either his eyes had slowly adjusted to the dark or some kind of light illuminated the cavern that this tunnel fed out into.

Red gnawed his lip carefully, counting every step his took. He'd reached about six-hundred-fifty-five; he guessed his seven hundredth step would probably see him inside the cavern. X clenched his fists and felt the reassuring hum of zynothium buzzing through his fingers. He steadied himself like he would before a major heist, closing his eyes and counting his every heart-beat for about five seconds…

Then he entered the cavern.

He hadn't really been expecting anything fantastic, such as an explosion, or blind, closed-fisted assault of massive proportions, but he _had_ expected…**_something_**. What he got: a big empty cavern with a tiny inkling of light issuing from a crack in the ceiling overhead. X breathed, loosing the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and examined the gigantic cave. The opening overhead allowed a long, pale beam of moon light stream into the otherwise gloomy cavern, illuminating a long sidewalk sized path and a steep drop off to both sides.

In the centre of the chamber, a narrow platform, slightly elevated above the rest of the rock path, seemed to radiate some kind of…presence. Mesmerized, the burglar moved warily down the long walkway, tense, senses strung out for any possible threat. The moonlight fluctuated as if a cloud had moved and a flurry of snow swooped into to chamber and momentarily obscured the burglar's view. He squinted through the mini-blizzard and lifted an arm to shield his face from the sudden gust.

Then the moonlight poured freely into the chamber and hit the mysterious figure. X sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth and his heart rocketed a quick flying kick against the back of his sternum.

It was Terra.

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note: **Oh darn. I lied. No action what so ever, but I swear to have action in the next chapter! Cross my heart and hope to die…kind of. For all the people who are confused, remember that Red X can only draw conclusions and thought Terra was dead. Finding her statue in here would be a big shocker for him. Sorry it's not very exciting. I'll try harder. Peace!


	9. To Dig a Grave

**To Dig a Grave**

_What kind of dumb-ass question is that? - Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

Terra. That had to be her.

Red X knew, even though every part of his mind protested that made no sense, he knew. This statue had once functioned as a living teenaged girl of flesh and blood and soul.

The girl, however, no longer sported vibrant blonde tresses, or brilliant blue eyes the color of free skies and blueberry smoothies. Her once flushed cream skin had darkened to a dull gray-blue of weathered stone, even the clothing on her body had petrified. Her pert, waifish face, frozen forever in a silent shriek of final defiance, looked heavenward, arms outstretched as if screaming to God for one last ounce of strength.

X couldn't imagine if she'd gotten her final wish.

A dark chuckle pierced the stagnant air with the force of a hammer blow and X spun. Slade had somehow materialized in the middle of the path behind him in that manner in which he did and scared the cat-burglar the rest of the way into his grave he'd meticulously - metaphorically and literally - dug for himself over the last couple hours by coming here.

Slade's dark, two-tone mask seemed to suck all the light out of the chamber, his very presence chilling the room like a ghost sucking warmth from the living. He clasped his hands behind his back and merely stood there, feet planted firmly in the very center of the narrow path, preventing any options of escape that X trusted to get by Slade.

The thief instantly flicked four shuriken into hand and fanned them expertly between his fingers. He felt his legs grow jittery with the urge to flee, but fought back his instinct with an iron resolve.

Well…maybe not _iron_…but this was the best he could do right now!

"All that's left of my former apprentice," Slade remarked unfabulously, waving a hand to the cold stone statuette. "Her final defiance triggered a volcano on par with that of Pompeii. She managed to stop it, but not without making a…_sacrifice_."

"Hmm, you have such a way with words. You write your own material or do you pay Steven King?" Red X asked, probably unwisely.

Luckily for him, Slade merely chuckled at his witticism and casually circled to the burglar's left. X shifted his weight, and followed suit, keeping as much space as possible between him and the psychopath. Slade never stopped looking at him. The thief felt the familiar fluttering sensation in his belly but ignored it, writing it off as bad microwave pork instead of the gut-wrenching dread it really was. He didn't think he could meet that admission of fear without losing his nerve completely.

"Be carefully with that tongue, Red X," warned Slade. "I might decide to cut it out of your face."

Okay…sheer, sadistic brutality of that threat not helping his resolve much! X had known virtually nothing about Slade's existence until about two weeks ago. Sure, the name stuck a bell from a couple head-lines, but almost all of said head-lines followed-up with a long, drooling article on how totally the Titans had shut him down or something. When Terra had supposedly destroyed the Teen Titans, X had sensed a faint utterance of the name there and about, but never bothered to draw anything more than very casual conclusions. Slade: crazy, ego/power-tripping maniac with some connections.

While stealing the suit from Titan Tower, he'd gone over a couple personal flies lying around in Robin's room and a few of the database histories to see which criminal ranked as top Titan priority. The name Slade came up plenty of times, but having no relevance to himself, X had dismissed the thought from his head.

He'd only gone in depth on the subject by really going over all the know facts in his head while hiding in an abandoned parking lot beneath a semi-truck. Once everything added up, he realized Slade probably didn't play with a full deck of cards one way or the other and probably wouldn't mind 'silencing' his apprentice. But something else told him that since the 'Terra Incident' Slade's tendencies had changed.

Red X suspected strongly Slade had become even more crazed than ever before.

"So, did you just decide this might be a nice evil lair or did you miss the sparkle of Terra's personality?" X asked. A moment after he did so, X wondered why everything he'd just figured out on the evilness of Slade hadn't made an impact on him and he continued to make smart-aleck jibe. If the man didn't beat his face in he should have if only to teach X how to shut his mouth every once and a while.

Slade narrowed his eyes. "You like to talk, X. A bit too much for my taste." The man stepped toward him and X whipped his arm up, weapons at the ready.

"Back off, old man. Where's the Atlantian?" X demanded, vouching that now would be a good time to get serious…and play the distraction card so the maniac wouldn't wring him to bloody pulp _just_ yet, but you know… whatever.

Slade laughed - not chuckled - laughed and if you know anything about Slade, like X did, that laugh could open the mouth of the Abyss and summon up hell-fire. The thief shuddered and a niggling doubt in his back of his brain began to blossom into a rose of uncertainty.

"Aqualad, is otherwise indisposed," Slade said cryptically, words slow like dripping honey. "He's being entertained by a mutual associate of mine and won't be joining us. I hope you're not too disappointed. After all, I doubt you came here solely for the sake of a single stranger."

"You're right," the thief agreed, nodding. "I notice when I got back, first thing. You stole my card collection...I want it back."

"Really?" He didn't sound convinced.

Red X felt an inappropriate smile tugging at his mouth. "Well, three's a crowd and what-not. But I wonder if petrified teenagers count?"

Slade waved a hand. "Not at all."

And then that same hand - through an impressive slight of hand - tapped a hidden remote control and the path at X's feet blew up. The rock exploded from three vocal points in front and to the right of the thief and hit the burglar like a wrecking ball, blasting him from the walkway and throwing him off the path and into open air. The burglar found himself plunging through fall-throughable-space and staring up as Terra's frozen frame vanished into the distance overhead. In a panic punched the belt notch, activating the vibro-portation tech.

His body buzzed and he felt himself flutter out of perception as his molecules accelerated and he snapped in and out of real-time. When his body shuddered back into reality had snatched at the wall and snagged his fingers in a deep crag etched in the rock face. He clung tight to the rock, grabbing firmly with his other hand and hugging his body to the side of the cliff as the rest of the debris whizzed past his head and into the darkness below.

Heart spazzing in his rib-cage, the boy wondered vaguely if Slade attempted to kill _all_ his apprentices.

"Still _hanging_ in there, X?"

"Oh _that's_ clever!" the thief laughed sarcastically. "Brilliant, real damn witty!"

Slade chuckled (Damn him!) and kicked a small pebble down the hole and right on top of burglar's hapless head. _Boink_! X seethed silently, face pressed against the crook of his arm to keep himself from telling Slade to go do unsanitary things with kitchen utensils. A course of action which, probably, would get him knocked right off the side of this rock. After all…

Slade was off his freakin' rocker!

"This from the boy hanging off the side of a cliff?" Slade's voice remarked from overhead. "I applaud your quick-thinking, X, but sorely question your sense of irony."

"Getting philosophical on me?" X growled, bracing his feet against the wall. He loosed one hand and flicked another handful of shuriken into his fist. "Well, that's just _lovely_."

He hurled the projectiles up at his attacker's face. The man had leaned over the side of the cliff to watch his victim, but now he leaned back to evade the erratic assault. The throwing stars zinged through the air and ricocheted off the ceiling to shoot off in random directions, vanishing into the darkness. Slade made a condescending noise in the back of his throat and leaned back over to tell the young thief how terrible his aim was…

and had his face met by X's boot.

Slade snarled in rage as the younger criminal landed the blow. The awkwardly aimed hit did little more than blind him as Red X vaulted over his enemy and landed on the crater ridden path. The thief didn't hesitate; he spun and launched an X from his palm. Slade anticipated his move, however, and ducked the projectile. The murderer rose to his feet and angrily began closing the distance between them with all the speed injured pride could muster, his single eye dark with fury.

Red, refusing intimidation tactics, flung two handfuls of his deadly throwing stars, briefly slowing the man as he paused to block every friggin' one of them. X felt himself gaping, but hoped the mask hid it as Slade easily deflected his weaponry and kept right on coming. The man suddenly charged the smaller felon, angling himself to the boy's right and swinging out with a ferocious left hook.

X ducked the attack, but found himself staggering at the very edge of the pathway, pin-wheeling his arms in an attempt to stay topside. Slade saved him from the fall, however, by snatching a fistful of his suit and throwing him up the path. He twisted his body mid-air and like a feline managed to right himself and land awkwardly on his feet.

Deciding that he didn't want to die and early death, the larcenist clenched both fists and out came the twin rotary blades he favored. He had the suit; he would press his advantage _now_ while his vitals could keep up with the tech. The electric whine of the spinning stiletto blades echoed through the empty cave as he fluttered out of perception and attacked. Slade hissed as whirling blades lunged out from all sides, striking at random it seemed from all angles and directions.

Finally, the thief, frustrated by his failure to land a proper hit, reappeared and lashed out a quick blow to the larger man's head, the heel of his foot crashing into the man's temple. Slade went down and immediately rolled back up, looking mildly annoyed.

"A nice strike, X. You have potential, but you'll never find an opening big enough to finish me. Hit and run tactics will only get you so far. Get you tired and worn." Slade circled the smaller fighter, eyes fixed on the thief as if he would suddenly burst into smoke and eddy out through the crevasse overhead. "You're smart, but you're not that smart. Strong but not strong enough. That's why you need me to train you, to condition that raw talent into something worthwhile."

X bit his tongue; trying to distract himself from the pain in the back of his head and the ache slowly worming down his arms. Slade's words echoed in his mind and body like a residual aftershock, as if the mere description had altered the state of his physical anatomy. The speed of his own attack jarred his arms numb in a way that fighting the Titan's never had. He couldn't keep it up. His guerilla tactics of hit and run reached their limit and he vied for switching tactics.

He lunged in low, using his smaller size to his advantage and slipping under the man's face-breaking punch to strike out a blow to his belly, slashing both blades for the man's middle. Slade, however, had not gained his reputation by letting stealthy strikes do him in. He swept his powerful arm down and around like some great, clearing cleaver and smashed the larcenist's arms away from him, sweeping them both to the left.

X improvised and rammed his shoulder into the madman's gut.

Slade grunted and staggered back, but managed to snatch X by the arm on the way, effectively ending all his hopes of keeping his distance from the larger man.

Panicked, X quickly whipped out a shuriken and immediately slammed the four pronged weapon between two of Slade's arm guards. Metal bit flesh with a sick meaty thud and Slade uttered a strange kind of hiss and _grabbed_ X by the face. Then he literally _threw_ the smaller criminal all the way to the end of the path where his head smashed brutally against the base of Terra's podium.

Black stars exploded behind his eyelids and the sensation of a demon let loose in his skull. For a moment all sound faded in the deafening pound of his own heart, his blood roaring in his ears drowned out all other noise. Stunned, he slumped lifelessly at Terra's feet, going limp in the gravel. Every nerve tingled, as if his traumatized brain couldn't remember how to play with the rest of his anatomy.

Must have caught on quick. Pain flooded his flesh like fire and every part of him ached with an unspeakable hurt. The ringing in his brain vibrating through his entire being.

Slade's steps on the stone vibrated in his skull, deafening him. He clenched his eyes shut, tears stinging the back of his eyes. Everything hurt again and worst of all he couldn't move to do anything about it. Feeling sick, Red slowly dragged himself to his hands and knees and clutched his head, feeling the world tip dangerously.

"You cannot win, Bannon," Slade remarked from somewhere nearby. "You're just another of my pupils, though, by far the most difficult to persuade."

He yanked the burglar up suddenly but only to strike him back down, delivering a stunning blow to the younger felon's jaw and backhanding him down the path. X hit the gravel hard and rolled over and over until he skidded to a painful halt about a third of the way down. Body shuddering from the violent shock, the burglar groaned and rolled onto his belly, slowly hunching his shoulders and dragging his limbs under him.

"Make this easier on yourself…" Slade began.

"Yeah, yeah, I know - and give up right?" X mumbled to the dirt.

"So it _is_ obstinacy and not stupidity that keeps you from swearing yourself to me," commented Slade. "How valiant."

X clenched his fist so tightly he gripped the dirt. He could feel blood spreading hot against the nape of his neck and a strange chill about his extremities. _Focus, X; just focus._

"Gee, does this make me a hero?" the thief chuckled quietly.

He felt eyes (eye) narrow.

"You aren't a hero. You aren't even a pawn on a chessboard yet. You refuse to take a side and squander your talents to serve yourself. A worthy goal in the short-term, but your lack of ambition astonishes me," Slade said and honest to God started to lecture him. "You are given everything you need, have it handed to you, but you strike it away and refuse a chance to become something great so you can entertain your petty, childish fantasies of romanticized thievery.

Slade moved down the path toward X and reached out either to deliver some new form of cruelty or to offer him a hand up.

The younger man didn't give him the chance. He hurled dirt into the murderer's face, blinding his one good eye and sending him reeling backward, roaring in fury. X leapt up and blasted the man with four individual energy bursts and five shuriken just for a topper and made a dash for the tunnels. Slade didn't have Aqualad. This was _not_ his problem anymore. No reason to stick around and die.

_And I don't romanticize anything_, he added privately.

Then something snagged his cape and the thief found himself sprawled artlessly on his ass.

Slade loomed over him, gripping the hem of the garment in his massive fist. He eyed the resourceful young bandit with a calm air and remarked, "You fight dirty."

X shrugged. "I'm not Robin."

And aimed a kick to the man's groin. However, Slade had grown wise to the boy's game and caught the offending boot before it made contact. X reasoned that Slade would probably kill him now and resigned himself to it, deciding he'd a lived _well_ if not _long_. But to his relief (or horror) the man started dragging him unceremoniously back toward Terra's statue and away from the exit.

Red thrashed like a demon-thing and using a move he just thought up, kicked the larger man's knee out from behind. Slade went down on one knee, placing his head within kicking range for the larcenist, who happily obliged the new target.

_Clang_! Boot on metal face mask.

Then the owner of said target spun around, startling X with his speed and smashing a fist into the rock behind his head. Dust coughed up over his shoulder and X guessed that if Slade hadn't held anything against the thief before, he _certainly_ did now. Slade's knee rammed mercilessly into his midsection and drove the smaller fighter into a fetal ball of pain. Then the man grabbed X by the back of the neck, gripping him tight. Without even a grunt of exertion, he hurled him against the base of Terra's podium like one tosses a kitten.

Pretty damn easily.

Slade leapt on the younger criminal before the stunned young man could figure out what he'd run into. His powerful hand easily encircled the boy's lower jaw and pinned his head against the stone. X squirmed, struggling to get free of the murderer's grip. His jaw ached. Slade's hold felt like steel, crushing his face and for a moment he considered it a plausible possibility.

Then Slade shoved head back against Terra's ankle, slamming the back of his skull against her petrified boot. Blood smeared the girl's stone shoe, dripping from the thief's head wound. X found himself staring up at the frozen teenager, staring at her upside-down face from the ground. He tried to move, but Slade held him too tightly.

"Look at her," Slade murmured forcefully. "_That_ is what comes of disobedience. Of defiance. Continue to fight me and you're just another Terra."

His fingers dug painfully into the younger felon's jaw, bruising the flesh and nearly choking the burglar. X felt his neck strain, the stone digging painfully into his lower back. Slade had him bent over backward against the rock. He grasped the larger man's wrist, struggling to pry it off him. Might as well have dug his fingernails into a vice, but that didn't dim his hopes much.

"Better another Terra than another Slade," X replied brightly, once again without regard for self-preservation.

"Better my apprentice…than a dead thief," the madman returned readily.

X swallowed. "I'd rather die."

"Very dramatic. Are you done?" Slade inquired.

He released the thief, shaking his hand free and dropping the athletic young man to the ground. X reflected on the corniness of his last line, but decided it had been the cliché that got him out of the face hold so he figured his dignity could take the bruising if it would spare his head. He felt shaky. His entire body threatened to go limp at any moment.

"Everything you do will crumble and fade into dust and nothing will remain," Slade hissed, kneeling low beside the injured thief. "People remember great things. Great and terrible things and you know this. You're a thief, that's why you steal: to be recognized and remembered and you're ruthless in that pursuit."

He tossed a bloody shuriken into the dust by the teenager's head and X wondered if he'd only just pulled that from his arm. "Just moments ago, you struck to kill with those weapons. Weapons you stole from Jump City's most illustrious crime-fighters. I understand you, X, and you should appreciate what I'm offering you freely. Come with me…and even _heroes_ will utter of your exploits in hushed stories. A legacy that won't be erased."

"_**Bite** me_!" X hissed, "You don't know what I steal for and you don't understand me because even _I_ don't understand me!"

Then his arm gave out and he fell to his elbows, ruining the affect. Slade didn't reply at first. Instead, he kicked X viciously in the side of the head, knocking him on his side and tossing him like a broken doll at the foot of Terra's platform. White fireworks bloomed behind his eyes and X moaned, rolling to his stomach and working up the strength to move.

Slade only chuckled and almost casually grabbed the teenager's arm, wrenching it behind his back and twisting up until the thief uttered a wordless cry. He kept twisting until Red's entire body went rigid with pain, his spine arching helplessly in reaction. He stopped, feeling the limb straining, threaten to break. X's breath came in shaking gasps that verged on tears as tendons slowly ripped and tore beneath the strain.

Slade released his arm and X slumped to the ground, gasping in relief.

"Do you want me to break it next time?" Slade asked.

X stared. "What kind of dumb-ass question is that?"

Slade backhanded him casually, knuckles striking his cheekbone with bruising force and snapping the boy's head to one side. X heard bells ring and held his head, waiting for it to stop. In the distant background he could hear Slade rambling something about how useless it was to resist, no one was coming for him and monologue-ing everything X already knew.

Why, oh, _why_ did villains have to monologue?

Slade crouched beside the thief who drifted only half consciously between his own thoughts and reality. Floating listlessly twixt the two. "You have nothing and no one, X. You're alone and on one will ever come to save you. Do you understand? You will never get away from me because -,"

Here he seized Red's zynothium belt and ripped it off the teenager's waist, tossing it over the edge of the cliff and into the abyss. The thief numbly wrote himself a mental note to get pissed about that later, but his head hurt too much for that at the time. He stared listlessly at the stone by his nose and listened as Slade went on.

"- secretly, you don't want to."

X blinked up at the man, certain he'd misunderstood then finally added, "Huh?"

Slade caught his chin. "You're captivated by what I do. The challenge of my intrigues fascinates you on a level you can't begin to comprehend, but it does. You don't realize it yet, but in that neurotic mind-," his single eye grew wild and his cold fingers slipped from X's chin to touch the centre of his forehead, "-is the perfect killer, the perfect fighter, and the perfect pupil. That's why you don't know the reason you steal. Somewhere, hidden in your subconscious the idea of working for me, serving me and training beneath me _thrills_ you…and that's the part-"

His other hand shot up and quite suddenly X found himself held fast, Slade's hands clutching the side of his head in a merciless hold.

"-I plan to bring out…once I've scraped away every other pesky flaw in your being."

X gaped; too horrified to speak. He'd known Slade's murderous mind didn't function like a normal person's. Hell! Even _his_ didn't, but he had not realized the extent of _Slade's_ damage. Whatever subtleties or façade of sanity he'd once claimed had long since melted into pure, unfettering schizophrenia. If Slade's grip on reality got any more twisted, the maniac would literally try to 'scrape away' his flaws. That unpleasant thought in mind, X managed to sputter the first thing that raced to his shell-shocked brain and mostly likely the best line to get him dead…fast.

"You're totally flippin' psycho!" he managed, talking like he had a speech impediment.

"Still you remain as impertinent and stubborn as when I first began testing you," Slade said, going on as if he hadn't heard. "You, Red X, are the only one who still refuses to change despite everything. Even Robin altered his behavior in accordance to my whims, but you…you just continue on your independent path of thievery and petty crime, when you have the potential to learn so much."

The man shook his head, still kneeling in front of the exhausted larcenist, back to the edge of the dark cliff edge behind him. All his attention fixated upon the single sentient creature before him, every particle of his focus upon the breaking of the fragile mind before him. On how to shatter him. Make him into a killer.

How to kill? Kill? No. How to murder. Make him into a murderer...

'_-you'll never find an opening big enough to finish me.'_

Click.

The sound of something in Red's brain turning on and suddenly as a toggle being thrown he just really wanted Slade gone. If the man wanted a killer...then he'd get one.

X didn't think. In a sudden, lucid moment he saw his opening - the one Slade had said he'd never find - and he watched as if of another person's body as he lifted his knee to his chest, kicked out. His foot, bearing every bruise, pain and emotion behind it, smashed Slade straight in chest. The adrenaline powered blow knocked the man reeling, sending the criminal staggering back. He saw himself stand and calmly as any Super Man, step once toward his target, pivot and deliver a flawless roundhouse kick to Slade's jaw.

His heel collided with the man's face, knocking his head to the side at an unnatural angle and madman and criminal mastermind stumbled backward. He lurched toward the cliff-edge - as if in slow motion - reached the end, teetered there…

and toppled backwards into the abyss.

And just like that X's mind snapped back to his body and the overwhelming sensation of his own skin filled his aching head. He fell back against the rock behind him with a great gasp and hugged his arms around his shoulders, shivering violently. Snow floated from the crack in the ceiling and a pale creamy light of a sunrise began to slip in through the crag overhead.

Slade.

Just like that the nightmare ended. X found himself alone. Upon discovering this, he slide down the stone and landed on his backend again, the last of his strength sucked away by cold and residual shock of _actually_ beating Slade...and like _that_ too.

No impressive battle scene, (unless you count having the living daylights beat out of you by a guy three times your size) no tension building fight leading up to the climactic end. No. Slade had died as suddenly as any other maniac. Not even a creepy horror-flick moment where the baddie comes back for one more go at the protagonist. So much for Hollywood and cinema!

The asshole had fallen off the damn cliff. Period.

Something fluttered and flashed at the corner of his vision and spun in a downward path to lodge in the gravel and dust beside his fingers. He squinted at the little white and red rectangle and gingerly picked it up between thumb and forefinger. He turned it over and the laughing, maniacal grin of the black joker smiled upon him. His favorite card.

X leaned over to stare over the edge of the precipice into the darkness. Snow whirled in through the crevasse overhead and spiraled down into the gloom of the shadows, following Slade to whatever doom gravity had carried him down to.

"Thanks for keeping my card safe," he croaked, adding almost as an after-thought, "Asshole."

Then he slumped against Terra's podium, completely unconscious.

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note: **Umm…huzzah? I killed Slade? Took me forever to get this battle to flow. I'm very picky about my fight scenes. Criticisms? I have a feeling you'll have some for this one. And I own nothing. Not the Titans, not X and not Stephen King obviously.


	10. Anticlimactic Conundrums

**Anti-Climactic Conundrums**

_Do you believe in sheer dumb luck? - Red X_

-t-h-i-e-f-

"Interesting."

He cringed once the words left his mouth, knowing that now, having said them, he'd have to own up to all the consequences that came with his involuntary utterance. Why? Well, because as everyone knows, secrets - especially the juicy ones - rarely stay in the obscurity of secrecy. Already he could feel unseen heads turning in his direction, eyes growing bright in interest as the rustling of pages, crinkle of paper and giggling paused in their sporadic rhythms.

"What is interesting?" Starfire inquired sweetly from her post beneath the Christmas tree.

"Yeah, man," Cyborg agreed. From Robin's point of view, the boy probably didn't care much what Robin did with his time because his eyes (real and cybernetic) remained plastered to the bright paper wrappings as he tore them off his latest gift. "Why are you running programs when you should be - ? should be - PARTYING WITH US! BOO-YAH!"

The dark-skinned teenager launched off his seat like a hyperactive two-year old on pixi-stix, dancing around and hugging the unidentifiable present to his chest. If the other's eyes did not deceive them then the young man seemed to be nearing tears of joy.

"I've been wanting this set of seat covers for my _baby_! Oh, she's gonna look _so_ **_sweet_** with these!" He huggled the seat covers and Starfire looked pleased by his enthusiasm. "Thanks BB!"

Beast Boy, currently chewing on a large chocolate bar the size of his own arm, didn't reply verbally, rather chose to throw his pal a thumbs up. Then he went back to his sugar inhalation. Raven who shared the couch with the candy addict decided her person also shared far too much space with that wildly chomping maw and scooted away from the flying globs of chocolate. Robin couldn't tell if she was trying to look unalarmed or unemotional…or both.

Starfire giggled and unearthed yet another gift with her name scrawled across the top. She examined it closely as she sat back down, green eyes scanning every inch of the brightly hued paper. Shook it, sniffed it and then - to everyone's horror - licked the package. 'Hmm' she uttered intellectually, smacking her lips and looking as if she was drawing some serious deductions about the characteristics of her Christmas gift.

"I believe I do not know what is inside. Delightful!" she announced and ripped the paper open with more abandon than even Beast Boy had shown. Cyborg got up to retrieve the cocoa and marshmallows he'd whipped up while the red-head gasped in ecstasy. The little white paper cups left over from the eggnog scattered in his wake and rolled beneath the couch and into other estranged crannies to hide out until spring cleaning. Meanwhile, Starfire let loose an almost animalistic 'squee!' of happiness.

"A bear of the 'teddy'!" she squealed, eyes glittering with unbridled joy. She hugged it tightly and kissed the adorable creature's head several times. "I am thrilled! Overjoyed! Estatic! I cannot express my happiness! Please, who is the one who has given me such a wonderful the gift!"

Raven had the grace to look embarrassed. "Umm…merry Christmas?"

"Eeeeee!" Starfire said and tackled the somber looking girl, hugging her and the bear simultaneously.

"Your turn, Bird-Boy."

Robin went 'huh?' but figured it out quickly when Beast Boy (vibrating with sugarific energy) rammed a large, spherical package into the poor boy's lap. Robin, man that he was, managed not to look too terribly agonized while Cyborg dashed to the masked teenager's aid. Red-faced, the team leader slowly rolled the gift off his abused anatomy and doubled up. Cyborg grimaced. Raven summoned the packed to her and peeled some paper off. She showed the large, polished bowling ball to Starfire, wincing in sympathy.

Beast Boy still couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong.

"Are you functional?" Starfire inquired kindly.

"Geez, I hope so…" Robin wheezed, trying to smile at the concerned Tameranian. Didn't work out so well. Robin sighed and resigned himself to eating carpet for a few more minutes. Curled in the fetal position on the floor Robin managed to keep his thoughts straight miraculously. He managed to get back in his seat and wondered distantly how their Christmas has still turned out so well. What with Red X causing trouble left and right…

Speaking of whom…

Raven glanced up at him through the corner of her eyes, soft lavender blue orbs locking briefly with his own. The boy shook his head just slightly and Raven nodded her head back into the _Alabaster Verse_. The teenager couldn't help but feel a bit cheated somehow. That even though he and Raven had gone through so much trouble, hassle and irritation stemming from one common criminal, they still had _nothing_…despite blood samples.

Not only did X's DNA not match any ID's in their databases and turned up nothing other than relatively low-blood pressure and type 'O' universal medical info that did nobody any good, but the thief had gotten away with everything. Robin knew Raven had noticed how absolutely livid he looked while repeatedly running the data through the computers and still turning up nothing. The Boy Wonder could only grit his teeth in frustration as his code-breakers and search protocols rammed head-on into firewall after firewall obstructing his access to whatever cornucopia of friggin' information they so jealously guarded.

_Bink_!

_Hello…what's this?_

Robin's left brow lifted and he turned back to his computer. A small, prompt had bubbled up on his screen accompanied by a single line of text. The Boy Wonder leaned closer to the screen, sneaking a look over his shoulder to see if the other Titans had noticed. Starfire and Cyborg seemed preoccupied with catching a sugar crazed green monkey wearing what looked like - no…was - Raven's cloak.

The boy returned his gaze to the screen, eyes taking in the lines that read:

'**A King and Joker crossed paths in Shanghai,**

**in the middle of the desert and talked,**

**Then the Joker said, "King, here's a query of mine:" **

"**Have you ever danced with the devil? Or walked?"**

"**Danced with the devil?" the King said, appalled.**

"**Yes! In the pale moonlight?" asked the Joker. **

"**Ridiculous!" said King, "I'd rather be mauled!"**

"**For a lord such as I, it's not proper!" **

**Then Joker turned round and sat on the ground, **

"**Tell me then, I'll make it brief," **

"**If all of this non-sense is something you found,"**

**What magic word stops a thief?"**

A blinking cursor followed the poem inside the prompt. Robin pondered, feeling excruciatingly dense as he did, what the archaic lines could be referring to and furthermore, what kind of medical file acquired a firewall that asked such inane questions? Robin queried silently a moment, rereading the riddle. It sounded strangely familiar. Obviously a hint of some kind to the password, but what?

"What?" Robin muttered.

"What is it?" a somber voice asked evenly. The teenager twisted in his chair and spotted Raven (having recovered her cloak from a mysteriously missing Beast Boy) seated on the couch, gaze darting back and forth across the pages of her new book. She spared her eyes to make momentary contact, sensing his gaze on her. She coughed politely. "Sorry. You were talking out loud again. You do that a lot you know."

The two Titans blinked at one another and Raven's large, blue-purple eyes flitted toward the computer screen curiously before shifting back to him. Robin pursed his lips, and glanced warningly to the left. She glanced at the other Titans but they currently occupied themselves with unwrapping the large seaweed swathed gift Aqualad had delivered to them earlier that evening. Both she and Robin paused to watch, leaning to get a better angle of the aquatic teen's gift. Cyborg stripped away the last of the damp plants and gave a 'whoa' of interest.

Sitting on the carpet in a nest of green see-foliage laid a long metal chest, encrusted with barnacles, stained by water damage and rusted nearly shut. The ogling teenagers could see the chipped metal around the lid of the chest where Tramm and Aqualad had loosened the damaged box. Starfire and Cyborg stared up at each other as if t scared to open it.

"_Sweet_! **_Treasure_**!" a Beast Boy-ish voice crowed and the changeling literally popped out of the floor where Raven had briefly banished him for stealing her cloak. His great green eyes glittered with manic anticipation and without a moment's hesitation he eagerly grabbed the rim of the lid and yanked it open.

"ARGH! It's a sea monster!" Beast Boy screeched. He leapt up gripping his arm and spazzing out. "It's hideous! It's got me!"

"EEEEK!" Starfire screamed while Cyborg simultaneously lunged away from the chest. Robin and Raven went rigid in fright. Beast Boy, still yelling, ran in circles while Starfire shrieked all the more and Robin began to shout 'Titans go!' But his effort cut short, when only seconds later, the changeling slowed his mad circle-running and collapsed on the carpet laughing hysterically. Star looked confused and shaken, while Cyborg had somehow teleported behind Raven to grip her like a safety blanket.

"Cy-," she gasped, eyes bulging, "air!"

"Y-you guys should have seen your _faces_!" Beast Boy howled in laughter, morphing into a hound to do it properly while his teammates slowly caught onto the joke.

Cyborg's humor acute mind got around the trickery first and the young man's face grew a darker tone of fury. The circuits visible along his head, arms and legs began to glow a threatening red. His human eye gave an unhealthy twitch while steam wafted off his head. Puppy Beast Boy cowered and whined, tail flipping down between his legs as his ears swiveled back. The changeling reverted to his human form and but somehow retained all the doggish terror as Star's bemused expression gave way to intense displeasure.

"BB. Tell me you did not just do that," Cy growled menacingly.

"Most un-humorous," Star said frigidly.

"Umm…heh heh," the green-skinned Titan sweatdropped, "I didn't do it?"

Beast Boy had suddenly grown very small, in fear as Starfire's predatory looking silhouette fell over him. Cyborg followed shortly, cracking his knuckles and leaving a near-unconscious Raven on the floor. The girl rolled out like a rug on the floor, eyes dizzy and swirling. The air deprivation had nearly done her in from the looks of it. Robin yelped and began fanning her with the _Alabaster Verse_. Luckily, the scent of poetry immediately brought her around and she snapped into the upright position so fast _Robin_ had whip-lash.

"Mine," she avowed, nabbing the book and burying her nose inside once again.

"Oh!" Starfire cried, clasping her hands to her face, eyes glittering with a glassy, mesmerized kind of look. Robin looked up at her and Raven … well, she didn't because the poem she'd found happened to have a particularly fascinating rhyme scheme. The red-head had spotted the contends of the chest and immediately seized Cyborg's arm, prying him off Beast Boy and yanking him to stand in front of the box.

"Starfire, what -,"

She grabbed his head and forced his gaze down. His eyes got big.

"Oh…"

Raven, Robin and Beast Boy (very bruised and rumpled) gathered around. Raven made a small, but undisguisable sound of shock whilst Robin whistled and Beast Boy gaped.

"Dude! How could I have missed _that_?" he sputtered.

Inside the long metal chest among a newly made and placed pillow of navy blue cloth, compliments of Aqualad, sat five polished and colorful razor clam shells, each the size of – say – Beast Boy's palm. Since he'd already grabbed up the third one from the end and juggled it excitedly from hand to hand, the estimation was a safe one.

"Hey! They have our names on them!" he exclaimed, whirling around to show his friends the delicate gold filigree nametag dangling from the back of the seashell.

Starfire delicately scooped hers up in her fingers and gingerly eased the two smooth surfaces apart. She peered inside and gasped, a smile lighting up her face like a newly plugged Christmas tree. She opened it up the rest of the way to uncover what looked like a mini pedestal of soft blue sandstone. Set in the centre of the stone sat the largest pearl any of the teenagers had seen in all their lives. But not only did the precious orb have size, the typical white sheen of the smooth enamel glowed a soft rose pink.

"I…I…have never seen such a beautiful gift!" Star whispered.

"Hey! Mine's yellow!" Beast Boy said excitedly.

"Buh-ya! Blue baby!" Cyborg cheered, flashing his azure colored pearl.

Robin admired his dark, gray-black Christmas gift. "Wow. He went through a lot of trouble to give us these. I mean, each one of these is exactly the same size. And colored," he said, not bothering to hide how impressed he was. "This is really…nice."

"Anybody _else_ feel terrible for not getting him anything?" Raven said drably. The other Titans sweatdropped and exchanged equally guilty looks. She shook her head and opened her present with a dubious look, as if expecting hers to be rosy pink as well. He face changed and she suddenly allowed herself a small smile. "It's white. He gave me a white one…"

The others traded subtle looks.

Beast Boy sauntered over. "Ahem…Raven."

"Hmm?" she said, eyeing him warily.

The changeling pointed up, indicating something over her head. She blinked and tipped her head upwards. Bobbing around her head like some kind of demented halo, several Christmas tree ornaments had dislodged from the pine branches to orbit her. She blushed and snatched them out of the air, snapping the clam shell shut and stowing it away in the folds of her cloak.

"So what?" she huffed, abnormally defensive and violently began reading the _Alabaster Verse_ again.

"Dude! We need to call him up. That was waaaay too cool of him. He totally needs to get his butt back here so we can say thanks," Beast Boy said excitedly, abandoning his Raven tormenting moment. He started patting himself down, a frown starting down his face. "Hey. Where _is_ my communicator?"

Robin coughed and suddenly became interested in his computer again. Raven didn't really 'scoot' away from Beast Boy, she kind of…relocated…It's hard to explain. But when she finished she'd reappeared beside Robin, reading the contents of the screen with the same over-interested manner she'd shown for her book.

Raven re-read the lines on the screen. "This just came up?"

"Yeah. I tried to run the data through Gotham Medical Databases," Robin explained, his familiar I'm-thinking frown in place. "It's a biggest epicenter of medical information I know. The program traced the figures to an entire group of blood donors and patients from every hospital in Gotham to the psyche and physical evaluations of asylum patients. Over five hundred hits. So I tried to narrow down the search."

"What did you do?"

He minimized the window and began keying in a couple commands. "I told it to run a trace on type O blood and patients from age fifteen to twenty five, male." He hit another key and eight new windows popped up. "I originally got thirty hits but I narrowed it down to possible fifteen, then eight."

Raven examined the various young men on the screen, ranging from age sixteen to twenty-one, Gotham residents or former Gotham residents, most of whom were alive and well some place or another. One was married according to his profile. The girl propped her elbow on the back of Robin's chair, tapping one slender finger against the side of her chin.

Her soft lavender blue eyes scanned over the eight different windows. Richard Carson. Adrian Gray. Marcus Tate. Josh Grosse. Xander O'Riley. Bannon Sasaki. Tyler Groven. Jackal Vern. Raven blinked, darting her eyes back a couple names.

"Umm, Robin?" She lifted a finger and placed it on the sixth profile. "His guy here. Is he one of your options?"

Taken a little over three years ago, the profile hadn't received an upgrade since then. The picture showed a cheerful looking red-head with unkempt hair that fell all over his forehead and spiked up from his skull. He looked good to say the least, a lot like Robin actually, save the smile…Robin never looked _that_ happy.

But according to his nationality checklist, it said a forth of his heritage came from Japan and the other seventy-five percent Irish and a conglomeration of other American mismatch. It wasn't prominent, but it showed in the slight golden tint in his skin and slant of his great cat-like eyes, the color of cinnamon apple-cider. The bio said his parents, Kate Sasaki and Alex Sasaki, checked him into the hospital for psychotherapy on accounts of sudden violent outbursts, unsociable behavior, kleptomania and suspected schizophrenia.

"Kelptomania?" she said suggestively, brows going up.

"Thieving compulsion," Robin confirmed. "Usually kleptomaniacs steal random things they don't need, but sometimes…"

"They just get addicted to stealing," Raven concluded flatly.

"Exactly."

"But that doesn't much matter since he's _dead_." She prodded the bottom of the bio confirming his suicide three years back. "He killed himself only five months into his treatment. They shipped him to Arkam where he overdosed on pills he smuggled inside. His father filed a huge lawsuit."

Raven reached over his shoulder and began keying in another command. "Look, the cremation records are here. It's legit. He's dead." She turned the screen display off and dragged Robin away from the computer by the back of his chair.

"Hey!"

She smirked. "It's Christmas. Enjoy yourself."

"But the password!"

"It's 'freeze'. You yell it at any criminal including thieves," she said rolling her eyes.

"…Oh," Robin said keenly.

"Hey Robin!" Cyborg's loud summons interrupted. The cybernetic teen proceeded to wave a large box temptingly in his direction while Starfire bounced eagerly up and down beside him. "Yu' know yu' want it. We have your spoiler gift from all of us! Hurry up or I'm takin' this baby back t' the store."

The spiky-haired teenager blinked at Raven, as if asking permission to abandon his post. She rolled her eyes in an undeniable 'get over there' expression. Whatever it meant or whoever Red X really was would just have to wait. He grinned at his friends and left the dark screen, crossing to room to take the package and sat down to open it. Right now, his responsibilities extended to present opening and the avoidance of mistletoe and eggnog at all costs.

Yes. It could wait. He had all the time in the world

-t-h-i-e-f-

"Do you believe in sheer dumb luck?"

X turned to his companion in silence as if expecting a reply. However, none came and the thief merely rubbed his aching shoulder and sighed into the emptiness of the cavern, looking out across the dark abyss to his left. The darkened pit yawned out beside him like the maw of a great beast. He simply stared down the throat, thinking nothing. He sat, legs curled up, lazing like some kind of red crisscrossed black cat against the leg of his impromptu Christmas date. She didn't talk much…in fact she didn't talk at all, but he thought she listened well and that made up for lack of reciprocal communication.

He chuckled softly to himself. "Whether or not you do, I'm converted, so don't knock the religion."

Gentle white flakes drifted downward, sprinkling his shoulders and cape in momentary white. The teenager tipped his head back against her stony thigh and stared up at the snow that slowly worked its way into the lonesome grotto. Her new apartment as he'd come to think of it in the last hour or so. He couldn't really bring himself to say her grave. Not while her likeness stood right behind him.

He wondered if she could see anything, petrified and stony as she was. Wondered if she'd watched his fight, what she would have thought if she _did_ think wherever she currently resided. She'd played hero once, joined the teeny-bopper Titan squad, battled the forces of evil, and all that jazz. But on the flipside, she'd turned homicidal on her former teammates and come perilously close to annihilating them. X glanced up at her. Terra's immobile features revealed no hint as to her opinion of his knew found faith or his perspective on her morals.

"I guess both of us are spending Christmas alone. Might as well enjoy the company while we can, huh, Terra?"

He imagined that she looked happy about his decision to hang around. It would suck royally if she didn't. _Look on the bright side_, X thought, _petrified dates can't walk out and leave you with the check_. Not that he actually had lots of experience in that field. Don't get me wrong, X could act very charismatic when he needed to, but that's acting…not socializing. The only two romantic relationships he'd managed to accidentally fall into ended in extremely hostile words and a lot of screaming.

Suffice to say, he liked Terra far more than any of his previous significant others. The cat-burglar reached up and carefully removed his mask, hissing slightly as bruised and tender skin stung under the motion. He slid the skull face off and laid it against the girl's opposite foot.

"Comfortable?"

…

"Great!" X exclaimed cheerily and reclined against Terra's stone frame. "I'm going to be honest. My legs have given out and I don't think I'll be reeducating them in the fine art of walking anytime before Christmas morning comes to an end."

He thought about those words and reconsidered.

"Not that I don't want to hang out. It's just…well it's the truth. I really can't move," he laughed. It sounded somewhat unsteady in his minor hysteria, voice climbing until he self-consciously stifled the inevitable crack in his voice. "Of course, you know all about that…not being able to move I mean…wait. Sorry. That's terrible. Let me start over."

Then quite suddenly he had nothing to say and fell eerily quiet. Only the sound of snow falling, which – as we all know – is no sound at all, filled the cavern. Red X touched the back of his head carefully and checked for blood, relieved to see the bleeding had finally stopped. He lowered his hand and folded his arms, hugging himself and shivering slightly in the fell winter chill.

Oddly, he felt _bad_ for saying those things to Terra. Whether or not she could hear, he didn't feel right picking on a companion who couldn't simply insult him back or escape his mental illness. He didn't really play fair most of the time, but he didn't really torture people either. Sitting here and jabbering aimlessly at the hapless statue-girl seemed…wrong somehow. Morally, I mean. He rubbed his upper-arms in an attempt to stay warm, the life-giving heat of his zynothium fuel having joined Slade in his dark, stony grave.

Note he harbored no qualms about calling it _Slade's_ grave.

"I'll tell you a secret Terra…" said X blithely, folding his arms over his knees and propping his chin on them. "I never really liked Christmas…ever."

…

"I don't know if you ever did, but other than all the awesome food that pops up around the holidays, I can't stand it," X said, staring blankly. "I mean the going's good. Lots of money floating around to cash in on – I wonder if I should even be talking about this to you. You're not offended are you? Sorry if you are, it's an addiction – Anyway…other than the financial improvement Christmas is…just another day in the year to me. Did it ever mean anything to you?"

"…" Terra replied wisely.

"I thought so," X said in reverence.

Quiet. Snow. But strangely an odd warmth at his back, running along his spine and between his shoulder-blades. The cat burglar sighed, shoulders slumping as he forced himself to relax. His brain had only just now processed the images of Slade's demise. His body, however, hadn't quite gotten the memo, resulting in the instinctive paranoia he experienced currently. He lost track of time, the meaning of clocks and the space time continuum failing to make an impression on him as he laid there. Strange how a statue could almost feel alive if you let one's imagination run away with –

Wait…

X frowned and turned around, rouge strands of damp hair flicking into his eyes. His gaze grew intense, wary as he leaned away from Terra. The warmth faded and the thief battled briefly with himself before slipping his glove off. He stood up, snatching up his masked and securing it safely over his features. Then he stepped up on the podium beside Terra, using her shoulder for balance. He moved back to keep some distance between them, feeling strangely awkward.

He lifted and experimental finger and placed the gloveless tip meticulously in the center of her forehead. He started, finger zipping back to his chest as if burned. He stared at his hand then up at her before boldly laying his entire hand against the cradle of flesh along her throat.

"Warm?" he murmured. His eyes darted to her petrified eyes of granite gray. Could it be?

So let's review the facts: he hadn't known Terra. He was a thief and she a former _Titan_. He jacked shiny things from people who didn't need them and lived to make life hard for do-gooders like _the Titans_. He hijacked his suit, his look and his alias 'Red X' from the _Titan_ **_leader_**. By all account he and the Titans were not on what most people would call 'good terms'. He did not want to think about implications that the warmth of her stone skin hid within it. One part of him thought that maybe he should mention this to someone, but…He just finished with his ass-busting good-deed for the century and he refused to perform anymore acts of civil service. Quota reached thanks!

But if somehow she really _was_…alive…

X looked her over a couple times, checking for any signs of life or movement or…anything. Then he crouched beside her foot and examined one of her stone shoelaces. This he tapped with his finger a moment…then broke off and examined, figuring that the worse that could happen might be Terra's loss in a small length of string. He didn't know what he'd expected, whether he'd suspected the stone might have string beneath it, or skin? But no. The string shaped granite kept no secrets. Just plain stone.

He eyed her exposed tell-tale skin and frowned, flicking the shoelace away and glancing lengthwise at the former Titan.

"Bet they're looking for the cure aren't they?" said X at last, dusting off his hands and standing to his feet in front of her. "Well, I'm sure they're already aware. After all, they made this lovely plaque and left flowers…kinda like a grave. My Lord, that's depressing. You don't need flowers and a plaque; you need someone to talk to. Does that green one drop by often? He's a talker. Maybe he'd wake you up with all his chattering."

Terra had no comment, but he didn't mind. He sighed and propped his elbow over her shoulder and leaned against her, hooking one foot behind the other and cupping his cheek in his hand, thinking. Terra waited patiently as always for him to go on. The only girl he didn't mind the silence with. Kinda nice.

"You're lucky yu'know," remarked the thief lightly. He paused and Terra silently reminded him why he was an idiot. "I mean...beside the being frozen part. That you've got a bunch of pals ready to run out here and help you. I mean, hell, if Slade got he better of me tonight...that would be that. No one's coming out to help me."

He glanced at her expectantly, but she stuck by her silence.

"You know…I think I'll come back sometime. When I'm not half-dead and freezing," Red X decided wistfully. He smiled at the blonde who didn't seem to notice, but once again he didn't mind. "I'll keep you company. I don't talk all the time thought, so I'll bring my old violin. Haven't touched it since I was in junior high, but I think I think I was pretty damn good. Anyway…"

He placed a quirky little kiss on her warmish stone cheek and hopped off the platform. "Merry Christmas, mud-girl! I promise to come back and talk some more. Maybe the music will wake you up."

And with that, he made his exit, humming to himself and feeling that somehow, despite everything and through every horror that little witch Fate had chucked at his head. He didn't mind it…he actually felt…genuinely happy. As he began the long, dark and stalactite filled journey through the mine shafts toward home he decided something very important.

_I think I'll have cinnamon toast when I get home…and hot cocoa…_

-t-h-i-e-f-

Selina smiled demurely, finger tapping the phone receiver lightly.

"Thanks for calling it in. I was worried you might not take me seriously," she teased, biting her tongue gently. "My informant tells me that the signal to Atlantis was intercepted. I assume a delegate was sent to discuss everything with old Triton? Wet, stuffy old bastard."

A short, masculine chuckle drifted over the line, low and husky. "What would a cat know about getting wet?" he asked mildly, if not a bit mockingly.

Selina laughed; a gentle lilting affair that filled the slowly brightening living room of her penthouse apartment. Dressed in her most comfortable silk nightgown, bathrobe, and slippers she felt supremely satisfied with herself. Like a cat in the cream as she liked to think. She smiled, swinging long, slim legs over the arm of her sofa and propping herself up amongst the pillows.

"As much as a bat might, I suppose. Why?" she inquired, voice drawling and sultry.

"No reason," he replied bluntly. "Thanks for the tip off, but Triton is suddenly concerned for the boy. Now that we brought attention to the Atlantian ranger, he's been insisting we send one of our people to do something about finding him."

"He wasn't before of course."

"…no. But he is now and we have to make the man happy for the sake of world peace. (here he made a strange, snorting sound and Selina giggled) I'll have to contact my protégé about it, but I'm sure you figured that out."

Selina delicately lifted her latte from the appropriately named coffee table and stirred the blob of whip cream into the delicious beverage. Having already drizzled it in caramel the concoction tasted fantastic. She smacked her lips happily; humming in satisfaction and wondering what the man over the phone might be doing this fine Christmas morn.

"I'm a clever kitty. I figured that much, but I wonder why you're not contacting him today?"

"I will…but not until for a while longer."

She smirked. "Are you giving his team Christmas morning off? How sweet."

A long pause. "Good-bye and a Merry Christmas," he said finally and hung up.

She tossed the phone across the room into another sofa and cradled her latte, inhaling deeply and sighing. She twirled a lock of her pale hair in distraction; nibbling the tip of her hair and watching the pale cast of Christmas dawn slowly fill the clouds outside. She glanced at the clock. Far past the deadline. If he hadn't already made his move then Triton might actually have something to get upset about.

But she had faith in her own protégé the way Batman had faith in his. She believed that Bannon would decide ultimately what kind of lines he wanted to cross or decline the way every thief did. She theorized that eventually Ban's selfish thinking would give way to more outward concerns. After all…

You can't deal with the problems of others…

…until you've dealt with your _own_.

Your problem…

-t-h-i-e-f-

**Author's Note: **I'd say the 'The End' but it seems inappropriate somehow…heh heh. First of all, I'd like to thank all my loyal readers and critics out there who made this fic possible. I appreciate your feedback. Secondly, yes, I know I kinda left Aqualad high and dry but this is why I need your lovely feedback one last time. I had a sketchy sequel planned, but only if yu'all want one. Let me introduce you to my beautiful questionnaire!

**Do you want the sequel to be about…**

A: Aqualad (sidestory kinda)

B: Red X and Terra (wink wink)

C: Red X and Robin (focus on X's past)

D: Think of your own crazy suggestion and add it in.

**Who would you like to see romantically involved if any? (you may select more than one)**

A: X and Raven

B: X and Terra (Beast Boy love triangle?)

C: Aqualad and Jinx

D: Eww! Gross! Cooties!

E: Other character couples

**Who wants Slade back!**

A: Me! ME! _ME!_

B: Nuuu! Keep him away!

C: Hint at his return and suggest at it but don't actually have him show up! Be mysterious!

D: I picked an Aqualad story…SLADE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT! Blood's the baddie now!

**Did all the previous questions suck? If so, make up your own suggestions and insert them here!**

A: Yes, you moron! What are you thinking? This is what should happen…

B: No. It's fine. Just get started on that sequel!

C: You suck. Get off the net.

Thank you for you input and feel free to be as detailed or vague as you like. All people who choose 'C' on the last question shall be dutifully stabbed with voodoo needles and/or sporked to death. It's been a pleasure writing for you and I hope you enjoyed this fic's evolution from short Christmas fling to long drawn out affair. Thank you.

Signed,

The Syco, Cheezit and Cloud8.9


End file.
